Celebrating 50 Years of Hip Hop: From NYC Voices to Cultural Force

Episode Transcript

Dr. Vincent Boudreau00:15

Welcome to From City to the World. I'm your host, Vince Boudreau, the President of the City College of New York. From City to the World is a show about how the work that we're doing at City College matters to people around the city and throughout the world. So over the course of our different programs, we'll discuss the practical applications of our research in solving real-world issues like poverty, homelessness, mental health challenges, affordable housing, disparities in healthcare, and immigration. Today, however, today we are celebrating with the rest of New York and the rest of America, the 50th anniversary of Hip Hop. Hip Hop turns 50 years old this year and around the world, here in New York City, there have been concerts, tours, battles, exhibitions, showcases, DJs, MCs, break dancers, beat boxers and graffiti artists. Netflix recently released a documentary titled Ladies First featuring Queen Latifah, MC Light, and some of the First Ladies of Hip Hop, Sha Rock, Roxanne Shanté, and others.
However, one female Hip Hop pioneer was not featured in that documentary, and so today we are going to rectify that injustice and hear her story. She was born and raised in Gun Hill Houses in the Bronx, the epicenter of the creation of Hip Ho. Gail Hall, also known on this station and around the world as DJ Flame is the first Afro Latina Hip Hop and holy Hip Hop DJ. She is a first generation DJ MC for Mercedes Ladies, Inner City Disco, The Erotic Disco Brothers, and the Chapter Five MCs. For more than 10 years, she's been the DJ for the legendary Kurtis Blow at the Hip Hop Church in New York City. In 2014, she was inducted in the Hip Hop Hall of Fame, and in 2021 she received several citations from two Bronx borough presidents and a proclamation from the city of New York. In 2023, she received a Hip Hop Hall of Fame legacy award for women in Hip Hop.
Back in 1996, she started attending Greater Faith Temple Church of the Living God and decided to answer the call on her life to be a minister of the gospel. That's when she merged Gospel and Hip Hop and became the first female radio host producer of the only urban Gospel show in NYC, The Anointed Mic Check, which currently airs at WHCR, this station, Wednesday mornings from 4:00 AM to 8:00 AM. I've been a guest on that show, and if you haven't tuned in, you should. This year, DJ Flame was the Holy Hip Hop DJ on Harlem, the week's main stage for the Hip Hop Hall of Fame showcase. DJ Flame, welcome to From City to the World.

DJ Flame02:59

Well, thank you. I'm very honored to be here. I'm sorry you had to painfully go through all of those accolades.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau03:07

I didn't feel any pain. I don't know if you felt pain over there.

DJ Flame03:09

I was over there, ooh, ooh.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau03:10

It was sweet from over here. I want to tell you the other thing is it has been three years since we've been in the studio.

DJ Flame03:18

Yes.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau03:18

We've been doing this show over the telephone and I can't tell you how happy I am that this is the show that brings us back into the studio so we can sit around a table and look into each other's eyes while we talk.

DJ Flame03:29

Yes.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau03:29

I said look, not gaze. So let's get to the conversation now, and I just want to hear you. I want to start out by you just telling us what it was like in those days. You were a pioneer, you were in the Gun Hill Houses as everything was getting started in the Bronx. Tell us a little bit about those early days of Hip Hop.

DJ Flame03:51

Well, Gun Hill Houses was uptown and there was a legendary venue called The T Connection, which many pioneers have graced that stage, and it's kind of like the Apollo for Hip Hop along with 371 and all other venues. But for me, I started in a club actually around the corner from T Connection. My mom and the club owner, they were friends and she knew that I was into music and she was like, "I'm scared she's going to run out in the street and do something she's not supposed to be doing." So Auntie Emma said, "Listen, let her come down here and we'll watch her and we'll make sure that nothing happens and she can deal with the music, with the DJs." I was 13 years old, actually.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau05:00

Wow.

DJ Flame05:00

And it was an after hour spot and DJ Kenny Anderson was the resident DJ at the time, and it was disco. I started out doing disco, I was mixing and didn't know anything really about Hip Hop because there was nothing on wax, if you will, commercialized. It wasn't. I happened to run into a mutual friend and he said, "Listen, my nephew is into all of that stuff you're into, I want to introduce you." And come to find out this person knew one of the Mercedes Ladies.
Now, I had no idea about the Mercedes Ladies. I thought I was the only female DJ. Uptown, I was the only one DJing as a female. To see another female, she walked in the door and was on the turntables and she had this look like... And then she got on and I looked at her the same way and she said, "You got to get down with our crew. You got to get down with our crew." I said, "There's more females like you?"

Dr. Vincent Boudreau06:16

That's wonderful.

DJ Flame06:17

I said, "I'm in, I'm in." That was my experience to the South Bronx. This first time really going down there. We had rehearsal space with, I believe it was Grand Wizard Theodore's parents and his group as well as the Mercedes Ladies. I walked into all this greatness of Hip Hop and it didn't even really know what I was walking into and was sitting there with, mentored by the creator of the Drop Media On the Scratch, which is Grand Wizard Theodore. So I have to shout out Baby D, DJ Baby D for that. It progressed. The climate, well, it was government programs, they were nonexistent. They were starting. In that area, not uptown, but in that area it was like a Warsaw ghetto, burning buildings, just drugs infested, all kinds of things.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau07:30

We're talking about the early 1970s, is that when we're...?

DJ Flame07:32

Yes. I will say, I'll put on record, and it has already been on record, but I'll put on record on your show, in 1977, the night of the blackout, the next day everyone had equipment. Everyone was DJing. So for some reason that was...

Dr. Vincent Boudreau07:53

There must've been a big government distribution program.

DJ Flame07:55

Oh yeah, definitely that.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau07:57

Very good.

DJ Flame08:00

And so from that time period, I met Baby D in 1978, the ending of 1978 into 1979. So I was with the Mercedes Ladies for a year and then went on to other groups.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau08:20

You raised two things that I actually had two separate questions I was going to ask you about it. I'm very curious about what it was like to be a woman, and it sounds like there was some pretty significant solidarity among women pioneers at the time, so I'm curious about that. I'm also curious about the kind of, like you said, before it got onto wax. This was a neighborhood phenomenon, and you could go out of your house and just run into some of the people that would be the greats of Hip Hop, hanging out, doing their work. So let's separate those two questions. Talk to me first about what it was like to be an early woman in an art form that isn't always, or at least wasn't for a while, associated with being particularly comfortable for women to be in or to succeed in. What was that like?

DJ Flame09:15

The beginning, it was rough. The men in this industry was not hearing females at all. I mean, we would get laughed at. Y'all better be good. We'd go to different parks. In some cases, it could have gotten even worse because at that time it was gang culture. So NYPD was in a whole nother mind space, and we weren't accepted. As females, it was just a thousand times more, and we had to really prove ourselves. It wasn't what you see now. When I was just saying the evolution, what you see now, it's a lot of sexual, misogynistic. It's still misogyny back then, but it wasn't to the level that it is now. You have females that are actually entertaining it. They have no filter.
There's a skillset that we had to adhere. I'm sitting with Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five, and I'm with Grand Wizard Theodore. They weren't about running around. It wasn't about money back then. It wasn't commercialized, I'd say perverted, if you will. It's been a journey just to have a real voice. I mean, look, after 50 years, here we are celebrating even talking about the issue of the 50 years of Hip Hop. But before then, there was so many artists that were struggling. And females, I'm happy that there are more females, but I would say present day females that I see, I'm concerned. As a mother of Hip Hop, I'm a little concerned. I understand the generational thing because they say, "Well, oh, because when we were younger, our parents, they didn't like rock and roll. They didn't like soul. They didn't like..."

Dr. Vincent Boudreau11:49

Also true.

DJ Flame11:50

Right. I understand that music goes through an evolution, but as it goes to another level, it's kind of like debauchery at the same time. It's going up in stature, but going down in essence.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau12:13

In those early days when you thought about the content of your words and your music, you had a moment when you decided that the integration of gospel into Hip Hop was going to be important. We're going to talk about that in a little bit, but you've got such strong feelings about what is happening now. What were you thinking about in terms of the message that you were putting out and the music? How did you want to position yourself as an artist?

DJ Flame12:44

It is funny, I didn't even look at myself as an artist. I just looked at myself as a woman who was a DJ, and no guy is going to tell me I can't get on the turntables and DJ. It was like, I'm going to show you. It was more of a dare thing. As I realized watching Theodore, and I was around Busy Bee because the Mercedes Ladies and the L Brothers, Busy Bee, Starski and all these greats, we were actually the sister group to that group. We had the same manager. We were able to glean basically from the men, and I saw the intensity of the arc form and the craft and the skill. I was like, I want to do that. I want to be a part of that. I want to be known for my skillset. As far as what I would play, well, at that time it was a little simpler than it is now. There were still innuendos, but again, innuendos.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau13:59

That's right. This idea of Hip Hop as a neighborhood phenomenon. Earlier on, you used the term industry. The industry was not about... But it wasn't an industry at the beginning?

DJ Flame14:10

Exactly.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau14:10

Could you talk about that a little bit?

DJ Flame14:12

It wasn't an industry. It was really street cred. Again, I can do this. There's nobody doing it better than me. I think that was more of the mindset, because people, they didn't even consider Hip Hop. They thought Hip Hop was a fad. It'll phase out. It's not going anywhere. You're wasting your time. Go get a government job. There's always work at the post office. You know what I mean? That type of thing. But we didn't even look at it as a profession. It was more of a hobby, and again, a badge for the street to say, "Hey, this is who I am. I rep this crew. I'm down with Mercedes Ladies." "Wow, y'all are ladies? I bet y'all are good."
We had a lot of guys hitting on us until they realized that wasn't the avenue to go. When they actually saw the skillset, then they were like, "Oh, okay, maybe we need to go home and practice because they kind of good." That was the mindset as far as, I'll say Mercedes Ladies, but I think it was totally the mindset because again, I didn't see anyone saying, "Oh, we got to go get a record deal, or we try to..." If anything, they wanted to play in big venues. That was the thing, playing in big venues and having crowds of people, getting the accolades from that. That's the respect.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau15:53

So what would be a big venue back then?

DJ Flame15:57

Wow. Oof.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau16:00

If you were starting out and you're like, "I got to get to this stage," what would you be reaching for?

DJ Flame16:06

For me? Oh, I can't even. You went there, you caught me. You got me this time. Let's see. I don't really want to say, because I know people are listening something, "No, there's something bigger than that."

Dr. Vincent Boudreau16:27

But that's kind of what we're getting at, right? In a way, it was such a community space that the big spaces would be big spaces that you could fight about if you lived in different boroughs.

DJ Flame16:39

Well, let me tell you this. In the summer of '77 and into 8, there weren't really many clubs. Clubs were not a lot. Like the T Connection, they didn't start doing Hip Hop until '78. They were strictly disco. It was you come and you party, I guess you would say BYOBB, bring your own brown bag and that type of thing. But we were in the streets. Hip Hop was the voice, the heartbeat of the streets. So the parks, if you talk about venues, it would be 80 Park, it would be Haffen Park, it would be Eden Wall Projects. Then of course when it got commercialized, then they were in the venues, The Fun House, these different venues. Some venues were like, "We don't want that here. We don't want you dressing. You can't wear sneakers. We don't approve of jeans here. You have to be dressed."
You had some people like DJ Hollywood who is on the precipice. He is Hip Hop, he's a rapper, he's a DJ, but he's not playing break beats. He's playing disco and he's rhyming over disco, so that was acceptable in the clubs. Once you came into that, you kind of had to show that, and then you can bring... Listen, why don't you come out and see us in the park? And that was kind of like the audition to come into the club, if you will.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau18:34

You start out, the thing that's pioneering about you, is you're the first Afro-Latina DJ.

DJ Flame18:42

Yes.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau18:43

I want to ask you a little bit about what did that bring to the art that made it different? Was it language? Was it themes? Was it just the fact of who you were, but the Hip Hop was kind of the same? Tell me about that.

DJ Flame19:01

This is interesting because I just recently, within the last 15 years, found out that I was Afro-Latina. But the crazy thing about it is when I went to some of the members of the Mercedes Ladies, they said, "Oh, we already knew that." I was just like, "Why didn't you tell me?" But it was the bonds that I had with different cultures. Even though I grew up in Gun Hill, my mom sent me to private schools. So I was in Wineback and Crow Hill School, and then I went to Moravian Academy in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. It wasn't parochial school, but it was an education that was set apart from the New York City system. And so when I came back, I was kind of lost. It was like Hip Hop saved my life. Music saved my life because I was suffering from lowest self-esteem issues and all these things that... I come from a one parent home. All of the people in my family, seemed like all of them are law enforcement. It's just crazy to me.
I didn't understand the difference when I went down into the South Bronx. Only when I was there and I was in the midst of it, it was like, wow, this is richness. Wow. I'm hearing congas, I'm hearing Spanish Harlem. I'm seeing break dancers who are Latin and I'm like, wow, everybody's doing this. It was just something to behold.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau21:01

It's funny, when I traveled around, I remember being in the Philippines and all of a sudden there's Filipino rap in Tagalog and I'm listening to it. If you don't know what they're saying, it sounds like garden variety Hip Hop. You understand the language, and they're saying things that are so kind of traditional to Filipino culture. There's a rap that's all about how you have to honor your parents and respect your father.

DJ Flame21:29

Absolutely.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau21:30

So you have this kind of transcendence of Gun Hill to the world with this art form. I want to ask you about your incorporation of gospel into the work. We said it earlier when I introduced you, you had a kind of moment when religion became much more explicitly part of how you were occupying your time and how you were pursuing your art. Could you talk about that a little bit and what it's done for Hip Hop and what it's done for you?

DJ Flame22:02

It's crazy because when I first gave my life to the Lord, I was managing my husband who was a part of the Zoo Nation, and he was on Hot 97 with Bambaataa. My mindset was like, it's about him, he's the DJ, because I'm not DJing anymore and I'm a professional. So I thought. I didn't realize until I went to the church and there were pastors and prophets that would come to me and say, "You're going to DJ for the Lord." I was like, "Okay, well, keep praying, but I don't see that."
And so one day I was at Greater Faith Temple and God bless Pastor Michel White-Haynes, who rest in peace, she was preaching at the time. I was just hearing a voice from the Lord saying, "I want you to DJ for me." I was like, "You must be talking about my husband. You're not talking about me." She was on the pulpit and she said, "Somebody has been fighting with the Lord. You've been wrestling, and yes, he wants you to do it." I said, "She can't be talking about me." Then she said, "Yes, I'm talking about you." You're like, oh my God.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau23:37

She said that to you?

DJ Flame23:39

She said that to the crowd. It was the response to my questions for God. I was sitting there going-

Dr. Vincent Boudreau23:48

But you didn't share that with her. You weren't like-

DJ Flame23:50

Oh, absolutely not. Then I had a little boy that walked up to me, eight years old, and he grabbed my hand and he looked at me and he said, "Aren't you tired of running?"

Dr. Vincent Boudreau24:02

Get out.

DJ Flame24:02

He said, "Why don't you do what God told you to do?" And I said, "Okay, I'm a DJ. I don't know how I'm going to do it. Lord, I'm going to curse. Help me." I am a very colorful person. I come up in law enforcement, so that's a colorful background. That was my thing. I was like, "You sure you want to use me?" And there it was from there. I saw the youth and they would youth choir, they'd be up there and everything was wonderful. Then we'd have a break in between the next service and they'd go outside and they'd be listening to Biggie. I said, "I don't understand. How can you be so anointed here and talk about holiness, and the lyrics of Biggie, you know? Little kids.
I'm like, I got to do something about this. That's when I was like, Lord, just help me to undo whatever wrong that I've done with promoting negativity in Hip Hop. Help me to bring a positive platform. Let me show these young people that there are other things, there's an alternative, especially Christians, believers. Because I was shocked because I'm coming from the woodwork and I'm going, okay, what is this about? And I guess you wanted the Kurtis Blow, the-

Dr. Vincent Boudreau25:41

I was going to ask you, you've been a DJ for Kurtis Blow's Hip Hop Church for the last, what, 10 years, right?

DJ Flame25:49

Actually it was a little longer, but we've had breaks COVID and the same thing.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau25:56

I'm curious both about the church, what it's like to go to the Hip Hop Church, but also what it's like to be you in the Hip Hop Church?

DJ Flame26:04

Oh, yeah. That was an explosive thing. Greater Hood Memorial here in Harlem, they opened their doors up to Kurtis Blow to have a Hip Hop Church choir. He would have rappers come up and minister. Normally the tradition is you go into the church, there's praise and worship, they're singing, there's a choir, then you go into preaching and this, that, the other. But with the Hip Hop Church, when you come in, I'm playing music. I'm basically the choir. The rappers are the ministers of that particular day. They'll have interchanging rappers come in and they'll minister, and then after all of that is over, then Kurtis would preach. Then we had altar call and all of that. It was offering, all of that.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau27:18

That's something. What's the address of the Hip Hop Church and tell us about services.

DJ Flame27:25

It's been a while since, because that has been shut down. I know it's Greater Hood Memorial, so you can go and Google it, because it's been a while. At least three, four years. I mean, the last time I think we were here and Angela pulled us in, Kurtis and I with Jean Parnell, because we were actually doing prison ministry and I was ringing my equipment-

Dr. Vincent Boudreau27:53

Well, listen, I have one more question, but I'm going to save it to the end of the show and ask both of you to ask the question. Welcome back, everybody. The show is From City to the World. I'm your host, Vince Boudreaux, the President of the City College of New York. We are celebrating 50 years of Hip Hop, and we've been talking to WHCR's own DJ Flame. Now it is my pleasure to introduce Reverend Conrad Tillary. Let me tell you a little bit about him today.
Reverend Tillary has been a student activist, a minister, and a community activist for 30 years. 1984 he started his career as a student activist, working as a national student coordinator in Reverend Jesse Jackson's presidential campaign. He later became known as the Hip Hop minister due to his work as youth minister in the nation of Islam, where he reached out to gangs to provide a bridge to peace. After leaving the nation in 1998, he founded a movement for change and continued the work. He's been both a mediator of Hip Hop, violent conflicts, and a spiritual mentor to prominent Hip Hop personalities. He's also been an outspoken critic of negativity in youth culture and the Hip Hop industry. Reverend Tillary has been featured nationally in numerous magazines and newspapers like Savoy, Vibe, Source, Esquire, XXL, Essence, Ebony, Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Los Angeles Times.
He's currently a Baptist and congregational minister, licensed and ordained at the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church here in Harlem. He's also an adjunct professor right here at City College of New York in the Black Studies Department where he teaches the Hip Hop class that focuses on social, political, and historical dimensions of Hip Hop over the past 50 years. He covers the genre from Robert Moses' impact on the Bronx communities that spawned Hip Hop, to its ultimate political and social impact, resulting in the election of America's first Black president, Barack Obama. In 2021, he was named Instructor of the Year in the Black Studies Department at CCNY, and he's the proud father of four children, Amir, Najma, Conrad Jr., and Barack. Reverend Tillary, welcome to From City to the World.

Rev. Conrad Tillary29:17

Thank you.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau30:05

I want to get your educational credentials in here. First, you've got a BA from University of Pennsylvania, a master of divinity from Union Theological Seminary here in New York, a THM from Princeton Theological Seminary, and additional graduate studies at Harvard Divinity School, John F. Kennedy School of Government, and Andover Newton Theological School. So, really pleased to have you here, Reverend Tillary.

Rev. Conrad Tillary30:29

Thank you, Mr. President. It's good to be here. Good to be back in the studio, and I'll do anything for Angela and Tina.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau30:36

That's fantastic. Well, we're grateful to be in the studio, grateful to have you in the studio. I did want to pick up one loose thread from the last segment.

Rev. Conrad Tillary30:43

Sure.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau30:44

Those of you that are interested in the Hip Hop Church, that is the Greater Hood Memorial, AME Zion Church, and the address is 160 West 146th Street here in Harlem if you're interested in going and checking that out.
So you wear a lot of hats, minister, you work with Hip Hop personalities, but I want to talk to you first off, as a professor. You've been honored with Teacher of the Year in the Black Studies Department. We are grateful to have you on faculty, but I'm curious how you approach your material. Are you focusing on reading, interpreting the art form, on its social and political context? All of the above? How do you approach it?

Rev. Conrad Tillary31:27

Yes. Well, that's the great thing about this course. It is a course that we cover a lot of political science in that we start the course looking at the impact Robert Moses had on the city, the political muscle he wielded. We look at the social conditions in New York in the seventies when the city went bankrupt and the federal government refused to bail the city out unless it made changes, and how all of this impacted. That's why listening to DJ Flame was great because she was actually there when this was taking place. But we cover those things. Then we're also sociological, and I'm a bit of a cultural critic, and we study the genre, but we also study the political impact of this generation, which in 1998 when we founded a Movement for Change, we said that hands that once scratched turntables would one day pick a president. I borrowed that from Jesse Jackson. He said, "Hands that once picked cotton, would one day pick a president."
But we show how the Hip Hop generation produced the Obama Coalition. We cover a lot in the course, so it is a very wonderful course. A lot of the young people, our students, many of them are born after Biggie and Tupac died, so a lot of this is very new to them. That's what makes it really enjoyable.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau33:00

It happens really quickly, doesn't it? That you wind up with students that were born after some of your most important cultural reference points.

Rev. Conrad Tillary33:06

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau33:08

It can be discouraging sometimes.

Rev. Conrad Tillary33:10

Yes.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau33:11

You said something quickly, and I want to make sure that our audience understands, and you're talking about Robert Moses. He had such an impact on the Bronx, on the cityscape of New York, and thinking about DJ Flames talking about the kind of neighborhood quality of Hip Hop, could you just get a little bit deeper into what his impact was and how you associate with the art form?

Rev. Conrad Tillary33:37

Sure. Well, we know that Moses was an extraordinary visionary and builder. I have to challenge my students to recognize the important contributions he made. But he was so politically powerful and so single-minded that many of the great contributions across Bronx Expressway bifurcated, destroyed coherent, cohesive communities. So by the 1970s, at the end of his building boom and his work, there were communities that had been cohesive that were now cut off. He built housing projects in a way that essentially cut them off from vibrant communities and isolated poverty. Out of those cracks, that social despair, a rose came up out of those cracks. That was Hip Hop, the creativity that the young people created in that environment. But it was a desolate environment, of course, and it was an environment that many of the traditional institutions failed to produce what the young people in the streets produced.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau34:50

So someone who's come through your class, what's the most important thing you want them to carry away from the experience?

Rev. Conrad Tillary34:57

The most important thing I want them to understand is Hip Hop is an interesting genre. I just turned 59 years old, and I don't ask ladies how old they are, but the point is the founders, Kool Herc, Flash, Bambaataa, these guys are now well into their sixties. But many of the younger generations often don't understand the historical continuity. What I want them to leave the class understanding is that a lot has happened in Hip Hop before they discovered it, and they need to know about these things. That's the main. And we cover so much. I mean, we cover West Coast rap, we cover a Public Enemy. One of the things we cover politically, many of them have never heard of a tremendous female rapper by the name of Sister Soldier.

DJ Flame34:57

Soldier.

Rev. Conrad Tillary35:50

She went literally toe to toe with the President of the United States at the time, Bill Clinton. That's an important moment in Hip Hop in terms of the political and social development of Hip Hop.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau36:01

Well, you're provoking a question I was going to ask later, but I'm going to roll it out right now.

Rev. Conrad Tillary36:01

Sure.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau36:06

As you think about that 50 year history, or maybe it's even longer than 50 years, can you identify what you would say the pivotal moments in the evolution of it are? Does it jump off the historical trajectory for you?

Rev. Conrad Tillary36:21

Well, there are a couple. There's much debate about when Hip Hop started and where it started. I mean, Brooklyn makes a case for it, but I think the Bronx is a really unique place because of the multiculturalism. And because of what was going on in the Bronx, it was a perfect set of conditions to create Hip Hop. So I think obviously the early seventies, '73, 1520 Cedric Avenue is one of those moments. But also the golden age of Hip Hop in the eighties, mid to late eighties and early nineties was very significant. There are just a number of points, so it's really hard to identify. For many people, the death of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls within six months in 1997 was a pivotal turning point.

DJ Flame37:20

Absolutely.

Rev. Conrad Tillary37:21

So there are many.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau37:25

Are we at a point where the genre gets the respect that it deserves?

Rev. Conrad Tillary37:29

Well, I think as DJ Flame said, the great thing about the genre in terms of what it has done in terms of the mainstream society, it has more than gotten its respect. It started on the margins. The Black music executives of that time didn't take it serious, didn't think it was going to last, but it clearly has staked its claim as one of the major American art forms that history will have to reckon with. We didn't mention this, but both Kurtis Blow and Russell Simmons were City College students, so that's a very important point.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau38:12

No, that's right. So much of your advocacy work centers on some of maybe the violence associated with Hip Hop or some of the influences in it, the genre, that maybe are not as helpful to youth as they could be. But I think about the origins of Hip Hop and there's a kind of sweetness in the earlier. You have all of these young men who you listen to track after track after track, the most important thing is, I want to tell you my name, I want to tell you I'm here. Does that feel accurate to you and can you talk a little bit about that?

Rev. Conrad Tillary38:53

That's one of the ironies of it. The founders really were creating a culture for young people in these depressed communities to have something positive to do. I talk about this in my class, some of the influences in the community at that time, the 5% nation of Gods and nerves, the Zulu Nation, you'd be hard pressed to even find profanity on the early rap records. The irony is something that was really designed to save a community. I introduced back in 1995, I think Suge Knight, who at the time was a big record industry person in California, I introduced him to Kool Herc and Bambaataa and Biggs and some other people. He wanted to know why didn't they make more money? How did you all let this get out of your hands?
He could not even conceptualize the concept that this was, as you said, a cultural movement. That people were not in this to make money, but it was there to give the community something very positive. And to see where we've gone today, when Biggie and Tupac got killed, that shook the conscience of the Hip Hop community. We've had over a hundred young rappers killed in the last 20 years, so it's now commonplace. Those kinds of things I'm deeply concerned about because at the end of the day, these are young people in urban communities across the country. We've got to save them and not put something on wax that is going to speed up their demise.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau40:48

I had two questions about, and we're at a point where they're both kind of relevant, so I'll put them both on the table. The first is so much of Hip Hop, it is a music of struggle, but it can go in two different ways. A lot of it is clearly a call to activism in the most positive way, even when it is militant activism. You think about Fight the. Power.

Rev. Conrad Tillary41:12

Absolutely.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau41:13

There's not a negative note in that song, but it is militant.

Rev. Conrad Tillary41:17

Right.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau41:19

Then there's music that goes in a different direction, same kind of sense of desperation and struggle, but it moves in violence. I wonder how you think about those two trends. Then the second question, which I'd originally conceived of as separate, but maybe it's not, is a lot of that energy is turned outward. But as you say, over the course of the industry's development, a lot of it went inward and it became violence across labels, or stuff put on wax explicitly to embarrass or humiliate somebody else. So maybe we take those two in different chunks.

Rev. Conrad Tillary41:58

Well, let me just say, I'd love to hear what DJ Flame says, but one of the things, obviously from the beginning, Hip Hop is competition. That's a wonderful thing. Sports, boxing, basketball, with football, the goal is not to hurt an opponent, play a hard, strong game. That's what Hip Hop was. One of the sad things is that as these record companies and corporations, I took to task some of the Black executives in the corporations back in the early 2000s, was a young man by the name of Jamal Shine Barrow who was with one of the labels. He had gotten mixed up in some trouble. I said, "Well, when Barry Gordy received 18 year olds from their parents, he taught them how to do interviews, how to conduct themselves and go around the world." I said, "These companies have an obligation to do that." Unfortunately, this young man was sentenced to 10 years in jail. He was deported, but there's always some good news. I'm happy to tell you, he is now the opposition leader in the country of Belize.

DJ Flame43:15

Wow.

Rev. Conrad Tillary43:15

And is probably the future prime minister of that country.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau43:18

Oh, wow.

DJ Flame43:18

Wow.

Rev. Conrad Tillary43:19

That's a good news of that story. But the point is, we have to... Hip Hop, and this is the theological part of my class, I posit that it has become a religion also. That's interesting what you're doing for young people, it has taken on religious dimensions. I think any society, our institutions, our colleges and universities, our churches, our governments, we've got to introduce things to them that are going to enhance their lives and not destroy them. I think some of these record companies have made a lot of money, and the authenticity and the realness is something that they're concerned about. So if you kill a lot of people, you sell a lot of records, and that's unacceptable. Should be, in a decent society.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau44:17

You spend a lot of your time mentoring Hip Hop personalities. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about what that's like, but also are there Barry Gordys out there that are doing the work of cultivating the whole artist and the whole member of society in this field?

Rev. Conrad Tillary44:37

Well, I think the great thing about it is as you grow up, that's the wonderful thing about it. I remember telling a rap mogul who had moved from the hood out to Saddle River, New Jersey. I said, "I'm going to bring some guys out there. They're going to spray paint your house. And you tell me, do you think that...?" And I happened to run into him, he was outside of a shi shi private school where his daughters went to school.
I think the good thing about it is when people grow up, as we evolve, you understand what a platform means. You see this in people like Snoop Dogg, and you see this in some of these artists who used to promote the negative, Master P, but they're doing so many positive things now, and that needs to be acknowledged. We have to always try to get to the younger ones to see how powerful this platform is and how much damage can be done with this platform. But the good thing is eventually people do grow up and they seem to understand that. We just got to get them before they lead a lot of young people astray.

DJ Flame45:51

That's it.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau45:52

We're at a moment right now, say since 2016, where a lot of the apparent social and cultural advances we've made are being rolled down. Whether people are just coming out of the shadows to say what they really thought all along or getting elected, whatever it is. But books being banned, diversity programs being outlawed, African-American studies programs closed up, all of that. I wonder in this context of seeming backlash and rollback, what's the Hip Hop response and where do you see the strongest response to that kind of a trend?

Rev. Conrad Tillary46:32

I also teach the civil rights class in the Black Studies Department. I challenged my students yesterday. We were looking at the Fisk University students in Nashville struggle, and I said, "This generation was impacted by segregation. They became passionate to bring about social change." I challenged my students, say, "What are you passionate about? What are the pressing issues that face you and what are you prepared to do in terms of making social change?" And so I think that's the operative question for the young people of this generation and each generation. Frantz Fanon said each generation has to identify what its major cause is, and then decide whether it will accept it or betray it.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau47:28

You talked earlier about Hip Hop as a religion. Is this connected up in there, the sort of mobilizing power of it?

Rev. Conrad Tillary47:36

Well, yes, that's part of the Black church, the Black religious tradition. I think Hip Hop has definitely demonstrated the ability to do that. I argue for, I do not feel it should be a religion because I think what it will do is ultimately leave young people with an emptiness. I think it's a great social vehicle.

DJ Flame47:59

Right.

Rev. Conrad Tillary48:01

I've tried to share with my brothers and sisters and friends in Hip Hop, it's not that Hip Hop's a culture, but it is a part of a great culture. It is a cultural outgrowth. It is a subculture of a very great culture.

DJ Flame48:18

Yes, it is. That's good.

Rev. Conrad Tillary48:20

I think that's the way I like to look at it.

DJ Flame48:22

That's good. I like it.

Rev. Conrad Tillary48:22

It's connected to something really deep.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau48:26

50th anniversary of Hip Hop, I want a celebratory moment here before we end. We know Public Enemy, we know Snoop Dogg, we know Digital Underground. I want to ask both of you to give us four Hip Hop names that we should pay attention to that's not necessarily on the top 40 Hip Hop list of everybody. Give us a couple buried treasures.

DJ Flame48:49

Oh, wow.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau48:53

Oh, I wish you could see her face on this radio, but DJ Flame is struggling.

DJ Flame48:58

I'm struggling on the mainstream. Now, as far as gospel, there are people that I think are amazing. Mahogany Jones, you have Light Da Flow Minista who is originally from the Bronx, but now she's a teacher in Ohio. Q the Prophet, who is also a pastor now. Richie Righteous, who's also a pastor. These are voices that I trust because I've watched their come up. I've watched them demonstrate excellence and integrity in everything that they do. I've watched them mobilize young people and bring them to consciousness, if you will.

Rev. Conrad Tillary49:58

Well, the first thing I tell my students in my class is that you know more about contemporary Hip Hop than I can ever know. I let them know there's not going to be a class about who's the hottest musically. So I think for me, the up and coming rapper than I spend most time listening to is actually my son Amir, who's out in California. His name is Amir Says Nothing. I wish he had made his name Amir Says Something, but he's got a rationale for it, so he's good. I hope you will check him out.

DJ Flame49:58

That's good.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau50:32

Oh, right. So we've got a plug for Amir Says Nothing. Check him out, ladies and gentlemen.

Rev. Conrad Tillary50:39

Yes.

Dr. Vincent Boudreau50:39

Well, listen, thank you for listening to From City to the World. Special thanks to our guest, Reverend Conrad Tillary, who teaches Hip Hop class here at City College. And Gail Windley, also known as DJ Flame, host of The Anointed Mic Check show on WHCR, which is Wednesday mornings from 4:00 AM to 8:00 AM. This show is produced by yours truly, Vince Boudreau and Angela Harden, and we will see you.