808 Page #2

And the kids would say that these are the

records that Afrika Bambaataa plays.

And so I asked the guy who was sort

of running that part of the store

selling records about how I

could reach Bambaataa,

and he gave me a phone number

and I called Bambaataa

and he told me, "Come

up and hear me play,

"I'm playing at the T-Connection on

Thursday night," or whatever it is,

and I went up to, to hear him

spin.

It was a disco, T-Connection it was

on White Plains Road in the Bronx.

There were some guys at the door and

I said I was here to see Bambaataa

and I think they looked at me like they had

never seen a white guy in the club ever.

They wanted to know who was

this black young man

who was playing all of these

different sounds of music

to a large black,

Latino audience.

They were hearing about me and the

different songs I was playing.

This is the time when we was just

giving the birth of hip hop.

I asked Bambaataa that night, I said,

"Do you want to make a record?"

and he said, "OK." And I never

made a record before,

I didn't really know

what that entailed

except from hanging out with

other people in the business

that were making records, so I said,

"Alright let's start working on it."

Tommy Boy was born in 1981 out of

Silverman's West 85th Street apartment,

and set about making records.

Hip-hop as we know

it was being born.

Silverman and Bambaataa got

together to work on ideas,

recording a demo for a record that would

define modern-day hip-hop and dance music.

We cut a demo for what would

become 'Planet Rock'

and it had three or four different

songs that we wanted to incorporate

and that Bambaataa was playing.

We used 'I Like It'

from BT Express,

we used a Rick James

song, Kraftwerk,

and we used Babe Ruth

'The Mexican',

and we made this eight-track demo.

I ended up having a cassette of it

and I played it for Arthur

Baker, he flipped out.

He said, "This is great, lets

do a full out recording of it,"

so I said, "Alright cool,

let's put this together."

In an uptown Manhattan

recording studio,

Silverman, Bambaataa, Baker,

John Robie, and Jay Burnett

set about producing the track.

One of Bambaataa's MC crews, The Soulsonic

Force, joined them in the studio that night.

The original Soulsonic Force was

Mr. Biggs, Pow Wow, G.L.Jo. B.E, Jazzy Jay.

We was trying to do that whole

family of funk or family of hip-hop,

like James Brown when he

had the family of soul,

or George 'Parliament

Funkadelic' had in Parliament.

There could be five or six on the stage or

sometimes we might have twenty on the microphone.

This gentleman here, first

Soulsonic Force member.

My name is Mr. Biggs, Soulsonic

Force, peace to the world.

Afrika Bambaataa's first MC.

Released on Tommy Boy

Records in 1982,

'Planet Rock' was the result of

a perfect fusion of people,

from diverse racial, social

and musical backgrounds.

A melting pot of musical genres, attitudes,

style, mentality, and beneath it all,

a visionary use of a drum

machine, the 808.

Just taste the

funk and hit me

Just get on down and hit me

Bambaataa's gettin'

so funky, now hit me

Yeaaaa, just hit me, it's

time to chase your dreams

Up out your seats,

make your body sway

Socialize, get down, let

your soul lead the way

Shake it now, go ladies,

it's a livin' dream

Love, life, live, come play the game, our

world is free, do what you want but scream

808 was definitely a serious sound

that gave that extra funk and grunt

to the record. Because if you

heard Kraftwerk they was funky,

but they didn't have that soulful

bass bottom that was needed.

That was definitely the

first time I saw an 808,

and it was also probably the

first hands on

computer that,

that I used in music.

- We heard that them drums come out the 808

and we was like... -That was the end.

- Yo what the hell.

- There was no bass like the 808.

- It would just hit you in the head like

your whole body would just shake. -Yes.

Oh it was the key,

it was the bottom,

and if you listen to the rock,

the way Arthur and John mixed it

they had to play with that 808

for a while to give it that

whrump, whrump, whrump you know.

It was very fast, the record was one

hundred and twenty nine beats per minute,

and in urban dance music at the time,

one hundred and twenty was speedy.

The rappers definitely weren't

into 'Planet Rock' when we did it,

they thought it was a weird beat, they thought it was

too fast or too slow because it was sort of half time.

It was so different it

has us startled like,

either this sh*t is

going to be a hit,

or we ain't going

to rap no more.

G.L.Jo. B.E was the guy who wrote

the stuff so basically

G.L.Jo. B.E had to take it back and come up

with phrasing and sort of do half time stuff.

G.L.Jo. B.E was the masterpiece

he came up with the blue print.

The things he could do with a

rhyme was just crazy.

We were so into what we had done we didn't

know what the outcome was going to be.

We were just relieved that it was over and we

knew that something was going on in that room.

You really can't predict a hit.

You can wish it to be a hit,

you can want it to be a hit, you

can construct it to be a hit,

but we knew, gut feeling that we had

done something nobody else could copy.

We weren't sure if it was going to be a hit

or a stiff, it was just an experiment.

It didn't sound like a hit,

because there was never a record

before that sounded like that.

I thought we had something

really special.

To me it felt more like a

Talking Heads record,

I was like wow, because of the clavinets

and all the different things.

I was super excited by it

even without the rap.

Soul Sonic Force

'Planet Rock' was fast becoming

a worldwide musical phenomenon.

Its distinct beats echoed throughout

nightclubs and on the streets,

inspiring the development

of new musical genres,

and in turn the producers and artists who would

continue to innovate with the 808 sound.

When we heard 'Planet Rock' it was like a great twist on

'Trans-Europe Express' because I loved the theme out of it.

It was just like a fantastic new look at it, you know.

It was like Kraftwerk go tribal.

You would never imagine Kraftwerk doing that,

which was the brilliant thing about it.

I mean it was great, but it was

like a really clever twist.

You heard keyboards, you heard bass

lines, but what's this drum sound.

It's like Kraftwerk, but it's

urban, it's funky, it's cool.

It was new territory because no one

had really used an 808 on a record

and it has this low end that

you couldn't really hear.

You wouldn't know it was there and

then it would just blow up a speaker.

I said they are using this drum machine

and it's a viable piece of equipment

that can actually, you can make records

out of and people are accepting it

because people hit the

floor and danced to it.

I can remember very distinctly the

first time I heard 'Planet Rock'.

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