Uncle Jamm's Army Archives

Exclusive: Greg Mack Breaks Down The History of 1580 KDAY

By: Timsanchez818Category: FeaturesDecember 30, 2013

No story about KDAY can be complete without going back to the beginning of where it all started and to do that you have to talk to the man responsible for putting together the format that would alter radio to this very day – Mr. Greg Mack. In the early to mid-80’s on an AM radio dial known as 1580 in Los Angeles, at a time when the music industry regarded Rap music as a passing fad, Greg Mack took a major step for street born genre by creating radio’s first Hip-Hop format. One could hear a rap song on the radio here or there or maybe on a Saturday night when programmers felt it was safe enough to play, but never could one wake up to the sounds of Run-DMC, The Fat Boys, and Whodini until 1580 KDAY made that all possible. In addition to being a force for Hip-Hop on a whole, KDAY was an outlet for local talent to shine as the station helped to create just about every West Coast star that came from the 80’s and early 90’s. In conclusion of our KDAY coverage of the past few weeks, AllHipHop.com sat down with the legendary programmer in a two part series to let him tell his story. Put on your reading glasses and get a Hip-Hop history lesson! You came to Los Angeles via Houston. First off, I was naïve to the streets when I came to Los Angeles. I’m proud to be a country boy and a lot of the rappers, gang bangers and people in the streets gave me a pass. They were like, “He doesn’t know he’s not supposed to wear Red or Blue so I’m not gonna whoop his a**.” When I first moved to South Central, I lived in mom’s backhouse. One day I was checking the mailbox and this lady came out and jumped on me because she thought I was taking her government check. I got her off of me and threw her over the fence. A crowd had gathered and I wondered what the big commotion was and they told me that this lady was my neighbor. I apologized and told her that I wasn’t trying to take her check and that I was only checking the mail. Later on some Crip approached me and asked me why I beat up his mom. He had a jheri curl and his hand on a gun. I had to explain the situation to him. Take us back to the beginning of your start at KDAY and how Hip-Hop became a music format for radio. I was a music programmer at Magic 102 in Houston so when I came to KDAY, I knew I could do the job. I did notice that everybody out here played their music loud, so if you wanted to know what everybody was in to, all you had to do was roll your window down and listen. I heard groups like Run-DMC and Sugarhill Gang and said to myself, “I think the people here like rap.” None of the stations would play rap except for a few times late at night. I met with KDAY managers Ed Kirby and Jack Patterson and told them that I would play the hits in rotation but I also wanted to experiment with Rap. They told me that I had to limit it to the night time and that’s how it started. Immediately with the first Arbitron ratings, they shot through the roof! After that they agreed to let me play a little bit of Rap in the afternoon, and then more as the kids began to eat it up. The record companies were p##### off at me because I was giving so much time to Rap when they were spending money on promoting their R & B artists. The major record stores were mad too because they weren’t carrying Rap – they thought it was just a novelty. The mom and pop stores and the swapmeets were making a killing because they were the only one’s willing to carry Hip-Hop. Even some in the community gave backlash saying that I was corrupting the youth by playing that music. I used to work with artists and actually made them change some of the lyrics for radio. I didn’t edit them or play them backwards. I had them go back in to the studio to change a verse. The argument was that even if you play a word backwards, the kids can still figure out what they were saying, and the artists would go back and change it. Even to this day I don’t understand why artists won’t do that anymore – just change the verse. Do it for the kids. You created the Mack Attack Mix Masters by taking local DJ’s from the party’s and clubs and putting them on radio. Where did this grand idea come from? I have a mentality of “there are no roadblocks, only hurdles.” When I came to Los Angeles, my sister told me about party’s that were being thrown by a crew named Uncle Jamm’s Army. I went to one of their shows at the Sports Arena and I could not believe my eyes. There were 8 to 10 thousand kids with nobody performing but the DJ’s. I had never seen anything like it in my life so I decided that I needed to get these guys to be a part of what I was doing at KDAY. I tracked down Rodger Clayton, the head of Uncle Jamm’s Army, and explained to him my idea of bringing them on to the radio. He told me that they didn’t need radio and that they were successful without it. I took that as a hurdle to my plan. The next Monday I had a meeting with people who were promoting their records and a guy came in by the name of Lonzo Williams who was promoting his group The World Class Wreckin’ Cru. I asked […]

Lessons From A Legend: DJ Bobcat

By: Timsanchez818Category: FeaturesJanuary 17, 2013

Los Angeles based DJ and Producer, Bobcat, has had quite an amazing career in Hip-Hop over the last 25 years. Starting off as a member of the groundbreaking and iconic DJ crew Uncle Jamm’s Army in the early 80’s, Bobcat was able to turn that in to career as a record producer. He was also instrumental in creating some of LL Cool J’s biggest records. After his stint with LL, Bobcat also laid down beats for Ice Cube’s Death Certificate album, which many consider to be his greatest to this day. It didn’t stop there. DJ Bobcat also played a very important role in the early career of Tupac Shakur, serving not only as a mentor and a big brother, but helping to shape the sound of his 2nd album, Strictly For My N.I.G.G.A.Z. AllHipHop.com caught up with the legendary DJ Bobcat, who shared some very interesting lessons about the music industry, working with a top artists and his private musical library. AllHipHop.com: You came up under the legendary DJ crew, Uncle Jamm’s Army. Tell us about your involvement in that whole movement. DJ Bobcat: For those that don’t know, Uncle Jamm’s Army was a legendary concert and party promoters that was responsible for pioneering the West Coast hip-hop scene – along with The Wreckin’ Cru. There were a lot of party promoters but Uncle Jamm’s was number one and the reason why is because they were able to do dances at the Los Angeles Sports Arena with 15,000 people showing up. This was all done without a concert or performing headliner. The DJ’s were the headliners. This was all the brainchild of Rodger Clayton, rest in peace. The Egyptian Lover was the star DJ and he was there before I came along. I ended up joining and I brought my own style to the crew because I was scratching much different than Egypt and the rest of them. I had a faster style because I was younger. How old were you when you joined Uncle Jamm’s Army? I was around the age of 14. I was still in middle school when I started to DJ. When I played at the Los Angeles Sports Arena, they had to give me milk crates to stand on so that I could reach the turntables. I know that I’m the old O.G. now but back then I was the little shrimp who was a DJ and people would say, “Look at the little kid mix!” I was a fast Scratcher but The Egyptian Lover taught me how to be precise. Rodger Clayton also taught me how to blend records and program. The art of programming is knowing what records to play and the way that you play them at certain stages of a party. I started the California Cat Crew which also included DJ Battlecat and I did that because I was doing up to 3 party’s a night and I needed someone to fill in at some of the gigs. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVDfyc2lh4Q&w=420&h=315] Not long after that, you made the transition from DJ to Record Producer. How did you manage that transition? I always tell producers that you always want to do a song in the same vibe of the song that you love. When I made “I Need Love” for LL Cool J, a lot of people don’t know that I was doing my own version of “Secret Lovers” by Atlantic Starr. Snoop Dogg and Mack 10 thought that I used a sample for Mack’s “Backyard Boogie.” I didn’t use one. That’s just me playing music. Producers like myself, DJ Pooh, Battlecat, Daz, Dre, Quik, Johnny J (Rest in Peace), after a while we have whatever type of music in us. It’s like, “You want something like this? Ok. Let me make something like this.” The tracks that I did for 2Pac originally came from the stuff that I was doing for Ice Cube; that whole Bomb Squad/Public Enemy sound. If you listen to “Peep Game” by 2Pac and Deadly Threat, you can take Pac off of there and easily replace him with Chuck D or Ice Cube. As a matter of fact, on that same album I did put Cube on there with Pac and Ice T. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFGOCybDrGQ&w=420&h=315] You mentioned “I Need Love.” That song took LL and rap to new heights because it was a different type of a hip-hop song at the time. How did you develop that sound and convince LL this was the direction he should take? At a young age I was blessed with the opportunity to meet Leon of the family singing group, The Sylvers. My sister Pam took me to their studio and their engineer began to teach me how to EQ sounds and other things. I was learning about songs just sitting around and listening to them. As it relates to me and how “I Need Love” was conceptualized, I would be at Uncle Jamm’s Record Store where Rodger Clayton had keyboards, fooling around on the Casio’s and the DX100. It was originally a song that I wrote called “Friends by Day, Lovers by Night.” I flew out to New York as part of The L.A. Posse to work with a Def Jam artist named Breeze. It was myself, Big Dad, Muffla and DJ Pooh. Breeze was supposed to be the up and coming LL, so Russell Simmons signed him. Just to throw this out there, we were the ones that also developed Nicky D and got her signed to Def Jam. So we were working with Breeze and doing such a great job, that Russell asked us if we were interested in doing pre-production on LL’s next album. We said yes and started working on records with LL. I developed a friendship with him and started going over to his house every day and we became like cousins. One day we had a discussion about ballads and I told him to take his music to another level by having something with […]

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