Schoolly D - Original Gangsta

by Andrew Emery, 1997

From his early days on the streets of Philly to becoming recognized as the inventor of Gangsta Rap, Schoolly D has always been on the edge. Now he’s in the UK, being lauded as a big beat hero and soundtrack specialist. HHC checks he still knows the score…..

Schoolly D. He was in Hip-Hop connection number one, he was in Hip-Hop Connection 100 and now, lucky fella, he’s in Hip-Hop Connection 110. So, what’s the occasion? Well, with living legends there need to be no occasion although there’s a loose one, the Schoolly D work on the indie-auteur Abel Ferrara’s latest slice of the dark life. Fittingly, given the apocalyptic content of Ferrara’s oeuvre, we’re in a plush yet naff London Hotel, a thousand staff floating about to no particular effect, a grand piano stands idle and the air is filled with the sound of fake, piped birdsong, supposedly emanating from the stuffed exhibits in the fake aviary in the centre of the room. You want pre-millennial angst played out against laughable post-modern sterility? Abel’s your man. Or rather, Schoolly D is, contributing six new songs to the score of the Blackout While also proceeding apace with work on his own millionth LP.

Basically, Schoolly remains the only b-boy that has maintained any kind of longevity in a field of Johnny-come-lately’s-and-disappear-earlies, consistently releasing new material, originating whole sub-genres and not only creating gangsta rap but also being the only person ever any good at it. Relaxed, affable and thoroughly cool, Schoolly takes us careering through his life, records, mum, projects and days off….

How did you start out in emceeing and who gave you your first break?

I did. I got turned onto rap in the scene way everybody got turned onto rap back in ’79. You didn’t know anybody that rapped but it was just the Sugarhill Gang record. Then came the Grandmaster Flash record, but what me really want to rap was when I heard the Funky Four Plus 1, I think that was the turning point that made me feel like we all could do it. In the beginning there was nobody in the ’hood who was saying, I got some equipment, come over’. It was nothing compared to today, you either had the love for it or you didn’t. You had talent as a writer or you didn’t.

"I’m an artist anyway and I was gonna live out my life as a creative person, so I guess rapping came along and saved a lot of young black youth just like when basketball came along. It was a vehicle for us to be creative and show off our talents and get a gig other than being a janitor."

What was your first release?

"My first release was on my own record label because nobody would put out ‘Gangster Boogie’ and ‘Maniac’ because I was talking about weed, getting high, pistols, snatching gazelles and it was told to me that nobody wanted to hear that. I was convinced that if I wanted to hear it then at least some of the people in my ‘hood would want to hear it too, so I went out and pressed the records up my damn self."

If you were influenced by the likes of Funky Four what made you take a different direction with your own career?

"When you’re an artist as opposed to an entertainer I don’t think you choose the way you go, I think you just go in that direction. My direction chose me, even today as a seasoned producer of 14 years I can go to the studio and cut tracks like Puffy and LL, but even if I wanted to it wouldn’t come out that way, I would come through somehow. Schoolly D would shine through somehow. I don’t attempt to guide myself, I let my creativity guide me."

Do you think people recognize you as the creator of ‘Gangsta rap’?

"In the beginning yeah, you had to recognize it was me. Even now, if you listen to the music and records that I did that survived years and years of all these other guys coming along and saying. ‘I’m the king of Gangsta rap’. The thing about gangsta rap is that I didn’t go to the studio and think, ‘I’m gonna create gangsta rap’, it just came out that way. When the ball was rolling and I helped change the direction and they start making money, of course they are gonna give me my props. Every time I did go out to the West Coast they showed me love and they knew where it came from."

Did you know back in the mid-‘80s that you were very popular over in the UK?

"Yeah, ‘cos Mick Jones brought me over to do the first thing with Audio Dynamite, and I came back over to do some gigs and a tour. Back then, being a kid and just starting out and making all this money, I didn’t really have time to think about it."

Did you find being a rapper difficult not being from New York?

"Nah, I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing anyway. Thinking about my first recording sessions, the only thing had to go on was that I was always fascinated by music documentaries about the Rolling Stones, James Brown or BB King, watch those guys in the studio, so that was my influence. Those were the things that taught me what to do in the studio."

Did you rap with anybody else before you made solo records?

"Yea, I rapped in a group, when I first got into the group there were like ten other rappers and I was the last emcee to get into the group – they didn’t even want me. They were like, ‘Goddamn man, there’s already ten of us so what the fuck is one more person gonna say’ and I nearly blew it not being myself. I actually signed one of them to my label, Royal Ron. He was the one who basically said, ‘You’re not Kurtis Blow, you’re not Melle Mel, you’re funny and you’re hardcore, why don’t you do that?’

When I started doing that it just exploded, just doing block parties and it went from 11 emcees down to eight, down to six, down to two. Ron grew as an emcee and I grew as an emcee, he had his style and I had my style, even down to the time when we were supposed to go and record the record and he never showed up. Nobody showed up. They were afraid, we didn’t know how to run a record company, we’d never been to the studio, we’d never done any of that shit before. That’s when I learned, you have to learn to do a bit of everything because you never know what position you’ll be in."

How did the hook-up with Code Money come about?

"That was an accident. We grew up in the same neighbourhood but he was more than a few years younger than me and still in high school. I’m just sitting on my step, just chilling and he’s like, ‘I wanna be your deejay’. I was looking at this kid like, ‘What the fuck? First of all I don’t know you, do you live around here?’ He said ‘Yeah, I live around the corner. Come to my mom’s house and I’ll show you that I can Deejay.’ So I went around the corner and his mom had a big stereo. He just put a record down, put the needle on and started scratching. I’d never seen shit like that before, it was just raw energy and ignorance, and nothing but art is going to come out of that. I figured that he was like me, creative in his own way. I would say that ten days after that we wrote and recorded ‘PSK’."

A lot of your early material sounded improvised.

"Just because it was. I don’t think I really started writing rhymes down until maybe the fifth album. A lot of these songs and verses were written down as ideas and I still do a lot of that today. I write more down today, but that’s because I can’t remember as much. You’re getting older, you’ve got more things to think about."

"Smoking weed for 20 years just affects your memory. I recently realised that I hadn’t been high in two months and I was remembering all the old songs, which I never usually do. It just proves it. I never really believed that shit about weed and memory loss, but that shit is true. When I’m gonna do gigs I just don’t get high."

How did you first hook up with Abel Ferrara and get involved with King of New York?

"At first I didn’t want to be involved, he was kind of wacky, calling me up at the house. I’d seen MS 45 and a couple of his other movies, but I wasn’t aware that he was the director. So he pretty much went over my head straight to Jive. They sent him a bunch of my music and started putting it in the film any-fucking-way. I was recording ‘Am I black enough for you’ at the time and as soon as they got the tapes they sent the tapes over to him. They didn’t even tell me until the film was done, they gave me a call and there was a special screening in New York."

"Musically, he trusts me a whole lot more now because I’m writing more for his films directly, but I still get the same feel. We hang out every now and then and it’s a blast. I know who he is and people ask me all the time how he’s so high-strung and I’m so laidback how do we get along. I think that’s the beauty of it. Could I deal with another laidback motherfucker in my life? Probably not. Could he deal with another high-strung motherfucker? I don’t think so."

Do you get to see the films before you write the music?

"With the last two projects I got to see the scripts first and then we started talking about music even before he’s got all the actors. The last two films I worked on I also happened to be there while they were filming, so I got to see a lot of the work that went on."

Are you working towards a new LP for yourself?

"Yeah, if I can find the goddamn time. I have six songs done so far, I have to do another five. Actually, it’s gonna be me with my new band so it’s not just gonna be Schoolly D. It’s gonna be Schoolly D & the Funk Mob. It definitely has my mark on it but I wanted to do some new shit. It’s not like I’m going off in a new direction that will scare motherfuckers, like I’m doing some classical music or some Billy Joel shit. It’s just am extension of what I want to do any-fucking-way. I think as an artist dealing with the public, if you present something different you have to give them a totally package."

"As far as ‘the Blackout’, that’s different. The songs just popped out from fucking nowhere – it’s beautiful when you’re working like that and you can just sit here and feel like shit is just floating over here. All of a sudden it just pops into your fucking skull and you start writing. You just do it. All but one of the songs was first take, the vocals were first take, whatever I felt like saying and it came out. The music was the same way, I guess it was like that because I had the script so long and I was actually on the set of the film."

Has Abel Ferrara ever tried to make you act?

"We did a lot of the score on the set ‘cos I’m actually in it too. It’s cool. You hear the shit all the time, it’s long hours, it’s hard work, it’s fucking sweaty. It is what it is but it’s cool. It was simple ‘cos I was just being myself, just being me. I play a guy who plays bass in a band at Dennis Hopper’s club, so basically it was me being me. I also did some acting in a new film called The Substitute 2. I think after those two things I would love to do more acting. I don’t know about acting in Abel Ferrara films per se because it’s like trying to take direction. If I was just an actor I can see that it would be easy for me, but since we’ve a personal relationship…….

"For me something major I might want to act with somebody I’m not friends with, so when they do scream at me and we’re about to throw fucking punches, you dig what I’m saying?"

Your career changed direction to a more conscious style of rhyme with the ‘Am I black enough for you? LP. Why did you choose to go that way?

"From where I grew up as a standpoint everybody was political, even the pimps and players. I was a young growing artist and it wasn’t like I chose to do that, it was just the album that came out of me. I think that’s the beauty of that period, from like ’84 to ’90 I don’t think rap artists really knew, they didn’t take direction because there was no direction to take. Run DMC couldn’t copy Run DMC because they were Run DMC. I couldn’t copy Schoolly D because I was Schoolly D and so forth and so one. There was nobody at the top for record companies to say, ‘Be like this’. A lot of these groups were either self-produced and I figured this should be my next record because that’s how I felt anyway."

"To say you’re one-dimensional, to say that you’re only a player or only a family man or only straight-up and down- you’re a fucking liar. I have all these things in me, as long as people continue to buy Schoolly D records, it’s always gonna be Schoolly D but it’s always gonna be something different."

What did you mum think of her depiction on the ‘Saturday night’ cut?

"I think after ‘Gucci time’ she just didn’t play any of them. She was in one of my videos when I was doing work for Ruffhouse. I didn’t even know she listened to the fucking lyrics, and now that I listen to the lyrics, I’m offended. I just think, shit, if it offends me sometimes I know it offends her, but I kind of explained to her ‘Yeah, it’s your son speaking, but a lot of times it’s artists speaking through your son. Don’t look at me as the little kid with the snotty nose. When you think of Schoolly D he’s not even your son."

How do you feel about Rock’n’roll these days?

"Rock’n’roll these days needs some soul. Rock’n’roll comes from great soul bands, guys like Wilson Pickett. Rock’n’roll used to have a beat, you used to dance to it, it said something, it meant something. Now is there any Rock’n’roll left? The Rock’n’rollers today are 50 and 60 years old. It’s still the same fucking bands that were around in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Who would you consider a new Rock’n’roll band? Rock’n’roll used to touch everybody."

Is it true that to get out of your Ruffhouse contract you held a gun to an executive’s head?

"Ruffhouse was easy to get out of, but it was just as easy to get into. Nah, I just said I don’t want to work with you guys any more and the feeling was mutual. Out of all the contracts I ever got out of it was just that simple, there was no big lawyers, it was just me walking in."

How do you feel about people sampling your music and have you been paid for it?

"I think that’s what publishing was invented for. When I started out I didn’t really understand publishing to that extent, I started to get it around six years ago when Siouxsie & The Banshees sampled ‘PSK’. I had a co-publishing deal so I owned it all myself. I had the feeling that somewhere down the line McDonalds and whatever were going to use some of that work. How do I feel about it? I don’t get too happy, I don’t get too sad. I sample, I get sampled, I pay, they have to pay."

"The Chemical Brothers? I haven’t seen the cheque yet. The first time I heard the Chemical Brothers was at home, sitting watching the NBA play-offs and they begin to show the programme and I hear, ‘Back with another one of those block rockin’ beats’. I’m like, ‘What the fuck, turn that shit up’. I rang my lawyer and was like, ‘Turn the goddamn finals on!’. They were just in the states end I spun at their gig in Philly."

Is it true you were going to sue the Beastie Boys for sampling ‘Gucci Time’?

"I was going to but that was just talk. My manager wanted to. What the fuck for? I was morally, ‘How the fuck can I go and sue the Beastie Boys when like James Brown, George Clinton, Bootsy, Aretha Franklin should be knocking on my motherfucking door?’. So how could I go do some shit like that? Lawsuits are no fun because I was sued by Led Zeppelin and that wasn’t a prettysight."

SCHOOLLY D SPECIAL - A TRIBUTE TO ONE OF THE GREATEST RAPPERS OF THE 20TH CENTURY

RELATED:
Schoolly D - Gangster Boogie: A street Hit Hip Hop Connection 1994
Last Temptation of Schoolly D (Interview) 1994
Schoolly D: The Reservoir Dog 1997
Schoolly D - Say It Loud, I Love Rap and I'm Proud 1986

LISTEN (real audio):
Schoolly D - Am I Black Enough For You
Schoolly D - Do It Do It
Schoolly D - Gucci Time
Schoolly D - I Dont Like Rock & Roll
Schoolly D - I Know They Wanna Kill Me
Schoolly D - PSK
Schoolly D - Saturday Night

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