when i was 22 i was dj’ing at the beat in port chester, ny and also at the cafe in greenwich, connecticut. and i was quite poor at the time(making, on average $100 a week and living in a semi-abandoned factory with no bathroomand no running water), so i got around by taking metro-north railroad for free(well, hiding in the toilets when the conductors came to collect tickets…something i’m not so proud of today).
and one day i was taking the train from stamford to port chester and i met these two kids who had aspirations to be mc’s. so we met up a few times and they had a ‘dr. rhythm’ drum machine that they used to make beats, and i scratched records on top of the beatsthat they had made. and it wasn’t too bad, actually. we rehearsed a few times and then they got an offer to play at a school party at their high school in new rochelle(who knows, maybe a young puff daddy and/or biggie smalls were in attendance). so i borrowed some turntables and showed up and we played a few songs and i felt a bit uncomfortable because the kids were yelling ‘hey white boy!’ at me, and i wasn’t sure if it was ‘hey white boy!’ in a benign way, or a ‘hey white boy!’ in an antagonistic way(because in my life i’ve certainly heard both).and then i never heard from these two kids again, because their friends convinced them that having a white dj wasn’t particularly cool as it was 1987 and the wholesale appropriation of hip-hop culture by white, suburban kids hadn’t happened yet.
i wonder if they went on to make any records? i guess i’ll never know.
and sometime soon i’ll write an update about my many years spent living in industrial spaces without toilets or kitchens or running water. you’d be surprised how easy it is to get by without running water once you figure out how.
moby