Hip-Hop Mysterioso

 I haven't done interviews, mostly because I'm uncomfortable. I spent my 20s in the basement. I hit 31, and I'm like, let me see if I'm missing something.

 I got into hip hop in '81. Believe it or not, my dad was a DJ when he was in the military. He had all the disco records, and hip hop was formed out of disco, kind of. So he had some of the singles, and that's how I heard all that shit. I just naturally became a DJ. In '83, when everyone was breakdancing, I wanted to be Grandmaster Flash. I didn't even move here until '90, '91. Before that I lived all over the world. My dad was in the army. So I was in Germany, Colorado, California. When I moved here, I kind of lost sight of what I wanted to do. You go through that 18-22 shit. Then I ended up meeting Sean and Siddiq through Musab. I was 24, 25, and them guys were just a little younger, but it felt like worlds apart. I still feel that way.

 All my friends, I'm like pieces of them. I feel like Musab in my mind sometimes. The way he says things, they way he is, is how I want to be. Slug is how I am deep inside. And Ali is like a vision of what rap sounded like. It's all different visions to me, and I'm a part of each of those.

 My favorite producers, I avoid stealing from, other than Marley Marl. We all steal from Marley Marl. None of the artists he worked with sounded good without him. Quincy Jones is like that, too. As far as I remember, Marley Marl was the first one to sample drum sounds to make the drums, using various types of loops and a lot of echo, which I still do to this day, which probably all goes back to dub.

                                   (scanned from Freddy Fresh Presents... The Rap Records)

 That Knights of the Turntables, Techno Scratch [JDC Records, 1984], that was one of the first rap records I ever bought besides Crash Crew, and it kind of changed my life. They had these echoing scratches, and used these casio drums and stuff. I bought that here in Minneapolis when I was visiting my grandmother for a month.

There's a lot of rare records in here. When I was a kid, and I was first starting, I had, like, ten records. My dad had 12 crates or something. And my vision was to surround my room with records. I wanted everything I've ever heard. I wanted a house full of records.

 This week I'm on a Time kick. I got a new Cadillac, right? The Time sounds good in there. So do early S.O.S. records, Zapp. Those records are consistently good to me. Maybe it's a childhood thing. And it is so far from what I do. But that's the type of shit I listen to. My dad gave me this record by a local soul group Haze, on ASI Records. Audiotech Studios, 1974. They're from here. But no Minnesota group fucks with the Time, or with Terry Lewis-Jimmy Jam as far as all the types of stuff they produced.

 I won't tell you my samples. It's an old sacred rule that's constantly being broke. It's like Wolfgang Puck, he don't tell everybody his secrets. I'm the fucking chef, I'm not telling you shit! This is my restaurant!

 We're not trying to satisfy anybody. I'm a selfish bastard: I make records for me. Because I'm the one that's going to have to listen to it when I'm fucking 50 or 60. Nobody else is. We're not gonna be the Beatles.

 Right now, everything I do with the Rhymesayers is 50/50. If I do a remix for one of the new guys, that's different. I didn't start making money until I'm 30.

 I don't DJ live. I just really got uncomfortable with it, like in the early '90s, doing it for years. I never really had fun doing it. It was just something I did, because I really liked messing with records. I like to make the mix tape thing every now and then. I did one a few years ago, got a new one coming out. That's me, that's who I am. I'm a behind the scenes kind of person. I don't want to be messing around onstage, talking to all these damn people.

                               (photo courtesy of Skye Rossi)

HERE'S A COMPLETE PAGE OF SCHOLTES ARTICLES ON TC HIP HOP AND THE OLD-SCHOOL UPDATED FOR 2005 (including all the links below, and many others)...

More hip hop at Complicatedfun.com:

 Fred "Rerun" Berry, R.I.P.

 MCs Come to Battle

 Minneapolis Punk and Hip Hop: Closer Than You Know, Love Each Other So

More Scholtes articles featuring Atmosphere:

 News piece on the Rhymesayers nights at First Avenue (7/22/98) 

 review of Se7en (12/29/99) Slug objected to the word "mature."

 Rhyme Out of Joint (7/5/00) Slug's life

 Back in the Day: a local hip hop timeline (7/5/00) A rough draft, really...

 In the Company of Flow (11/29/00) Old School meets new indie

 What It Is: a review of Lucy Ford (2/21/01) God did fans hate this...

 What's the Big Eyedea? (9/12/01) The articles start getting good about here...

 Slug and St. Patrick Costello shoot the shit (12/18/02)

 First Love: An Oral History of First Avenue (9/3/03)

 Blazin' on $20 a Day: Five Nights in the Life of Local Hip Hop (9/17/03)

 Minnesota Local Music Yearbook 2003

 The TC Old-School Hip Hop Page/An Oral History of Minnesota Hip Hop (8/17/04)

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