EMP Oral History Videos

Category: Hip-Hop

Video Title: Blackout!

Watch Video: HI | LO

Who: Grandmaster Caz, Disco Wiz, Tony Tone and Whipper Whip
What: Old School Hip-Hop DJs and MCs
Interviewed: October 1-2, 1999
Where: New York, NY

The Players:
Disco Wiz was a Latino DJ who was briefly known as DJ Louie Lou. Wiz worked with Grandmaster Caz — then known as DJ Casanova Fly — throughout the mid- to late-1970s
Whipper Whip was an MC who began his career with Grandmaster Caz, formed the Salt and Pepper MCs with Dota Rock, was briefly a member of the Cold Crush Brothers, and then joined Grand Wizard Theodore's Fantastic 5
Grandmaster Caz is best known as the lead MC of the Cold Crush Brothers
Tony Tone was the sound man for DJ Breakout and the Brothers Disco. As a DJ, he paired up with DJ Charlie Chase and formed the Cold Crush Brothers.

Learn more:EMP’s exhibit, Yes Yes Y’All, is based on the book of the same name by Jim Fricke and Charlie Ahearn. The exhibit features rare photographs and artifacts of hip-hop’s founders and stars, old school and new, including Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash, DJ Kool Herc, Melle Mel, Grand Wizard Theodore, Grandmaster Caz, Rahiem, Fab 5 Freddy, Tony Tone, and DMC.

Read the transcript:

DJ Disco Wiz:
One time in 1977, in the summer, we decided to bring our system out to the park on 183rd Street and Valentine. To battle. And we had a pretty big crowd.

Grandmaster Caz:
It was the same park where we filmed the basketball scene in Wild Style, years later.

Wiz:
We were out there. That was in July of '77. We were in the middle of a frenzied battle. In those days we used to plug in our stuff to a lamppost, and many a time we have blown lampposts out. This particular day we were in the middle of a battle, and it started getting dark. All of a sudden Caz was on the ones and twos, and we had our stuff roped off like always.

Caz:
While he did his thing, I'm just waitin'. He turns off, it's my turn. I throw on one record over here, boom, the crowd is goin' nuts, 'cause they know I'm gonna get into my thing. I take the other record, I know this is gonna kill 'em. So boom. Time comes, boom! It was the back of "Indiscreet" by DC la Rue. I bring in the record. "Love, loove, looooovve . . ." It just slows to a stop.

Wiz:
The light blew out.

Caz:
Went off. The whole set went off.

Wiz:
Two lights blew out.

Caz:
And then the streetlights started goin' out one at a time, all the way up the block, like "poof, poof, poof, poof, poof." We looked at each other. I go, "Oh shit" 'cause we're plugged into one of the street lights and I thought we blew out the whole street! The whole neighborhood went dark.

Wiz:
And you know what it was? It was the Blackout of '77.

Caz:
We was in the park with our equipment. The crowd, they realized it at the same time. Gates started comin' down on the bodegas, the stores started closin' up, but they couldn't close fast enough. Those stores knew what was coming. They knew they getting ready to loot. People are like, "what's happening?" Then one person screams, "Blackout! Hit the stores!" By now the whole city was dark. People are charging right for us. My man Disco Wiz he got a 45 pistol and we jump up on the speakers and yell, "Don't run this way. Run the other way!" We thought they might start grabbing our stuff.

Wiz:
It was insane. It was something I'll never forget for as long as I live. You could imagine having a whole system out there, during the Blackout, in a crowd.

Caz:
It was panic everywhere in the streets. We're trying to get our stuff home safe. This was a block off of one of the main shoppin' areas in the Bronx, okay? Then I see this store called the Sound Room that was one of the first audio stores. There was like 18 people on the metal gate. Boom. They pull down the gate and kick in the glass. People are crawling in there and running out with speakers and turntables. I was like, "Yo, people breakin' in there anyway, might as well run in and see about getting us a new mixer and turntables!" People were breaking into check cashing places and getting food stamps. You'd see whole families walking down the block all carrying living room sets and bedroom sets. Next day the streets was filthy, stuff strewn all over. Every store was broken in. It was crazy. People were selling shit left and right. You'd see people with bikes and all kinds of shit they never had. Someone said, "God made Christmas for Black people". Word.

Tony Tone:
The Blackout? I was sitting in front of the building I lived in. My mother wouldn't let me leave the block. Everybody was looting. A lot of people was stealing mopeds, cuz they had just came out and that's what everybody wanted. At that time, if I knew where Sam Ash (a popular music store) was, that's where I would've been trying to get.

Whipper Whip:
I was living on 149th and Riverside at my grandmother's house, and as I was on the phone with a little honey, the lights went off. I said, "Man, my lights are goin' out." She said, "My lights went out too!" She's in the Bronx, I'm in Manhattan, I'm like, "Hey! What's goin' on!?" I didn't go out, I didn't loot, I didn't do any of that stuff. I stayed home with grandma; we went downstairs and stayed in the neighborhood. But the next day it was like all of New York was on sale! [laughs]

Busy Bee:
The Blackout? I was where I was supposed to been. [laughing] But I didn't know the lights was going to stay out! I was getting ready to get me some love! And the lights went out right on time to where she said, "Turn them on." "Sorry, but there's nothin' happening babe, no lights to be turned on! So we have to get down and do it, or that's that!" I was at the perfect place at the right time. The next day I was mad, because that's the time I found out I could have got two new pairs of sneakers, two TVs - because the stores was getting looted up, and all the places getting robbed up. I had to be layin' down with a broad! [laughing]

Wiz:
It's funny, 'cause I have a theory. I always tell him. You know what? Before that Blackout you had about maybe five legitimate crews of DJ's. After the Blackout, you had a DJ on every block...

Caz:
Everybody was a DJ. Everybody stole turntables and stuff. Every electronic store imaginable got hit for stuff. Every record store. Everything. That sprung a whole new set of DJs.

Wiz:
That Blackout made a big spark in the hip-hop revolution.