From his independent heater ‘Cannibal Town’, through to his The Hitman album and his work as a member of the Maniac Mob on The D&D Project, founding Flavor Unit soldier Double J has been doing his thing to rep Jersey City over the years without getting caught out by the music game.
Robbie: When did you start working with 45 King?
Double J: Meeting with Mark in ‘86, I hear everybody speaking of ‘the basement’, but when I started out we were in the attic in East Orange. Everybody talking about the basement – they should know about the attic. Mark had the microphones screwed into the wall, like four mics lined up, and everybody used to come up there, rhymin’. We started to make so much noise he had to leave there. Then we went down to the basement where we continued making the noise. Before all of that, I was more into the street life rather than the music at that time. I wasn’t really into writing rhymes and this and that, ‘cos I had just had a kid, and I’m trying to raise a kid real early. When the music wasn’t giving me no checks, I’ve still got to put milk on the table and pampers. So I had to keep living the street life and rhyme every chance I could. So when I met up with Mark and ‘em we go and make tapes and everything – we just had a lot of fun and just rocked. We made a lotta video tapes of us passing the mic too. Me, Apache and Latee – we went to school together. Me and Latee was in the same 3rd grade class. At the beginning of the Flavor Unit, we’d be all in the basement and we was wondering what should we call it. Should we call it the ‘Flavor Posse’ because it was already the Juice Crew so we couldn’t use the Flavor Crew. I think it was Lakim Shabazz that said, ‘Let’s call it the Flavor Unit’, and ever since then that’s what we rolled with. The word ‘Flavor’ was Latee from ‘This Cut’s Got Flavor’, ‘cos that was the first record outta the crew that was poppin’ on the radio. (more…)
Loud drums, Treach on point and…Vinnie doing his best Onyx impersonation? Two out of three ain’t bad, word to Meatloaf. Thanks to D-BO for pointing this out to me.
Just spotted this at 45 King‘s YouTube channel. I’m guessing this is from the same sessions that appeared on The Cat Jams LP from a couple of years back. Chill Rob G stays slept on.
You might remember Markey Fresh from the classic 45 King joint ‘The King Is Here’, or his solo single on Jive called ‘The Mack of Rap’. As it turns out, he was technically the first MC to ever work with The 45 King in his famous basement in New Jersey…
Robbie: How did you meet The 45 King?
Markey Fresh: I was born and raised in The Bronx. I used to live in the Bronxdale projects, and Afrika Bambatta used to come through there all the time, playing his music outside on the basketball court, and I just got consumed by that. I just started at a young age – say fourteen – writing rhymes. We moved to New Jersey when I was about sixteen. When we came to New Jersey it was just straight House music until I went to school one day and this guy brung a tape in. I was like, ‘Man, where’d you get that from?’ And he said, ‘From this guy named Mark. He lives around the corner from the school’. I went straight over there into the basement, and I was there every day after that, because he was the only one in New Jersey playing hip-hop – everyone else was into House. I was the first one down in that basement, and after three years that’s when everybody else came along, out of the woodwork, because Mark started becoming known. So all of these people I’d never heard of – or seen – just popped-up, all at once. A lot of the times they do these interviews with the so-called original members, and my name is not on there? Wow. (more…)
Apache, a founding member of the original Flavor Unit and cousin of Latee has passed away after years of poor health. Lord Ali Ba-Skidiscussed his unfortunate condition a couple of years ago:
‘Apache is on permanent disability now. He has a bruised heart. He got his bruised heart from when he was with that label [Tommy Boy] and making all that good money, ‘cos Apache got the biggest shine – not including Naughty By Nature and Latifah and all the rest of ‘em – but as far as the original Flavor Unit cats? He got the biggest shine outta all of us, as far as money. I mean he had a $250,000 budget with his label, see. And Apache did show after show after show. He was getting triple what Chill Rob was getting for a show. He used to get anywhere from 7 G’s to 20 G’s a show! He went through some money. This guy used to get so high and drunk – his whole thing was a big ‘ol party. Then he bloated all the way up to 300 and something pounds, and mind you he’s like only 5′9″, 5′10″. He blew up to 300 pounds and the guys almost bed-ridden from getting so big, and then he went up and down.’
Another sad loss for the hip-hop community… (more…)
One of the unsung heroes of the original Flavor Unit was Lord Ali Ba-Ski (aka The Human Body Chart), who wrecked shit something terrible on the 45 King Presents…The Flavor Unit album. I always wondered why he didn’t drop any other records after that album, and after I did a post about him as part of 2006′s Flavor Unit Special, the big man himself blessed the comment section. It goes without saying that I followed-up with an interview request, and as is often the case it took over a year before we finally got a chance to build – but it was well worth the wait.
What better way to mark the 350th post on Unkut Dot Com than an exclusive with this Flavor Unit originator?
Robbie: So you’re 6’8″ and you used to play ball?
Ali Ba-Ski: I went to junior school in Kentucky, then I transferred to a four-year in Alabama – Sanford University. I left there after the first year. We used to run them bleaches around the whole stadium, and then I got diagnosed with something called Osgood’s Slaughter. That’s when you real tall and the bone beneath your knee-cap slips from under there – you get mad tendonitis. After that happened, I was still able to play but I just lost my drive for it. They had me projected to play overseas professionally and everything! I was the number two player in the State of Kentucky as a freshman, and then I was the number one player in my sophomore year, before I got all the offers and everything. I was out there handling my business. While all that was going on, I wasn’t even thinking of rap.
Apache and Latee, they my first cousins. They pretty much pulled me in the game. They was goin’ over to East Orange, New Jersey – to Mark house – and they asked me did I want to go one day, so I went over there with ‘em. They used to be over there – Apache, Latee, Chill Rob, Lakim Shabazz – they used to be in there freestyling, and Taheed used to be there too. He used to be down with Apache, they used to have their little group, there was two of ‘em. I used to be in there, sipping on my 40’s while they was doin’ their thing, and then just outta the blue one day I shocked all of ‘em and just said something that I had written, and they was all on the ground rollin’ and laughin’ and cracking up! After that it was one verse after the other, it never stopped. All it did was get better. (more…)
What’s worse? Rap made for chicks, or broads rapping? It’s been so long since a skirt has made a decent rap song, it’s not even funny. What’s even less amusing is hip-hop made specifically for dames. It was bad enough when Heavy D was dancing around in transparent rain-coats and Ja Rule was making like Stewart Little with his shirt off. Now we’ve got douche-bags like the Gym Class Heroes churning-out Wuss Rap that make Snow Patrol and Maroon 5 sound hardcore. (more…)
As one of the most influential beat-makers of the late 80′s, The 45 King brought horns up front like no one had thought to do before him, setting the stage for Pete Rock to flip them for his own signature style during his ’93-’94 takeover. But where he really made his mark was on full-length projects, as Mark constructed masterful albums with Lakim Shabazz and Chill Rob G, as well as being the dominant force behind Queen Latifah‘s first step into showbiz. But his reach didn’t end there, as he’s provided some more recent hits for Jay-Z (“Hard Knock Life”) and Eminem (“Stan”), and is currently recording new material with Chill Rob and Lakim.
When I spoke to Mark early one morning, he excused himself to go take a nap or something so I never got the chance to ask him about his superior rhyme skills and a bunch of other shit. I was meant to call him the next day but it never happened. Hopefully I’ll do a part two eventually but this will have to do for now. All I need now is a Latifah post and the Flavor Unit Special is just about a wrap!
The 45 King: My question…what do you think my stage name is?
Robbie: Your stage name? Umm…I guess on the early records it was DJ Mark The 45 King…but nowadays you call yourself The 45 King.
Thank-you…thank-you. Thank-you very much.
A lotta people get that mixed up?
Yeah. Then they cut it Mark 45 King. That’s incorrect. It’s not like I’m Jazzy Jeff or anybody – so me correcting myself – “he got some nerve!” (more…)
If, for some ungodly reason, you’re not familiar with the work of Chill Rob G then you might want to check this before you read this interview I did with Rob a couple of months ago.
Robbie: In the early days of the Flavor Unit, was it tough for you guys to get accepted in New York, being that you’re from New Jersey?
Chill Rob G: In the very beginning I think we did have a bit of a problem, because at that time just about every MC who had a deal was from New York. I was one of the later members to come along, from the original Flavor Unit members, it was like Latifah, Apache and Latee – it was just those three. Then when I came along, Red Alert would play Mark’s beats but he wouldn’t play the MC’s – he wouldn’t play anything with the rappers on it. So I think one of my records, something that me and Mark did, was one of the first things he played with somebody rhyming on it. Then after that the door was kinda open.
So he’d only play stuff like “The 900 Number” before that?
“900 Number” came along later. Mark used to give Red Alert just beats for maybe a year before I even met him, and Red Alert would just play the beat on the show when he would interview people, or just talk over the beat, stuff like that. He had a little drop in the radio station, and it would go “45 King special-special!” and he would play the beat – but nobody would rhyme to it! (more…)
In terms of being low profile, Lord Alibaski would have to be the most elusive Flavor Unit member/affiliate. I’ve never read so much as a paragraph about him in a magazine, seen a picture of him – nothing! All I can tell you is that he featured heavily on original issue of The 45 King Presents The Flavor Unit LP, contributing four solo shots and a verse on the posse cut. When the album was repackaged as Queen Latifah and the Original Flavor Unit in 1996, three of Alibaski’s songs were removed for some reason. 45 King has previously stated that most of the songs off this album were old demos – and it’s that raw, basement flavor sound that makes these songs so great. No over-produced dramatics here, just dope loops and drum breaks. Alibaski flexes the trademark Flavor U style – combining a dominant, deep-voiced delivery with a variety of flow patterns and an accomplished braggadocio technique. (more…)
In terms of vocab, concepts, flow and style, Chill Rob G was the top dog in the Flavor Unit wolf pack. His first record remains as one of the finest selections in the impressive Wild Pitch catalog, as all three songs hit equally hard. “Chillin” didn’t end up making the album, but provides a perfect example of Rob’s technique, as he informs us that “it’s hard to find a rapper with my dedication/intelect, sense of humor – plus imagination” while “jumping from one subject to the next” in a superb display of lyrical prowess that manages to combine a stream-of-consciousness feel while still keeping it in the pocket over a rolling break. (more…)
I can’t confirm that Priority One were official Flavor Unit (actually I’m pretty sure they weren’t), but Louie Louie was 45 King‘s right-hand man for a while, so his work deserves a mention here. His first record was with his crew Priority One, who dropped “I Can’t Go For That”/”Showin’ My Stuff” on Tuff City in 1988. At this stage the group consisted of MC Ron Delite, Naikwan, DJ Smitty B, Louie Louie and JV-1.
Five Things You Need To Know About Ron Delite:
1. He’s a solo poet (that means he rocks alone).
2. He’s a South Bronx resident (that’s quite evident).
3. He’s been rockin’ rhymes ever since he was ten (but that was ten years ago)1
4. If Ron Delite was spaghetti, Smitty B would be sauce.
5. He’s clean, crisp and clearer (like 7UP). (more…)
One of the early members of the Flavor Unit, Double J doesn’t feature on much of their output other than his spot on “The Flavor Unit Assination Squad” and a couple of 12″s. He mentions how it all started in an old Hip Hop Connection piece:
“We used to do block parties in Jersey City where I was born and raised. Me, Latee and Zeke met up with DJ Mark in 1988 and he introduced us to this other rapper named Apache and the rest of the Flavor Unit.”
He also explains how he got his deal with Island Records on the strength of his appearence in a homemade video of the crew that Fab Five Freddy had shot. (more…)
