Time Travelin' with the Genius
posted on Sep 20, 2005Besides MCing were you ever involved in any other elements of hip-hop?
I used to break around the same time. Before it became breakdancing it was just called breakin’, before they started spinning on the head and spinning the back. It was more of an uprock thing and little bit of floor stuff. I was involved in that at the time I started rhyming ‘cause those things were connected.
Like I was saying, Staten Island was behind so when I would travel to the Bronx to visit my family up there… I had cousins and they had stopped breakin’! It was over for them, it was a wrap! I was asking them certain things about breakin’, “How do you do this, how do you do a sweep?” and they were like, “We don’t break no more,” and it was just starting to pop off in Staten Island! Matter of fact, we had a brother who was from the Bronx who came to stay in Shaolin at the time and he was incredible! He just ruled the Island. What he was doing was probably normal up there the South Bronx, but he came to Shaolin and he gained so much recognition so fast through the whole borough just on his breaking skills.
I used to do graffiti. I never tagged on walls with spray paint and all that, but I would do graffiti of my name. I can draw a little, I can sketch. On “I Ain’t No Joke” where Rakim said, “I wrote a rhyme in graffiti’n…” Sometimes lyricists connect with other lyricists… I don’t know how serious people took that but when he said that, I said, “Ohh,” ‘cause I wrote a rhyme in graffiti! I was probably about 16, I had this verse that I thought was so incredible that I wrote it in graffiti. I wanted to see it like that on paper in bold letters! When Rakim said that I was like, “Oh!” and I’m hearing it years later and some stuff he said I didn’t catch ‘til years [after that]...
I was never good at scratching and DJing. I could probably throw a scratch here and there, but I was never real nice like that, like RZA and Dirty. RZA was ill on the turntables and Dirty was nice.
One thing that was always confusing to me was where you are from. Ads for your first album had you listed as the ‘Brooklyn freestyle champion.’ Then with the Wu it was all about Shaolin. Plus you talk about the Bronx a lot – so many boroughs are associated with your name.
Yeah, I lived in every borough. I was born in Brooklyn. I moved to Shaolin at the age of 9 or 10. That’s the home of hip-hop for me, where I started to pick up this lyrical talent. I would travel via public transportation at a young age to the Bronx from Staten Island. Taking the ferry and jumping on a train and then jumping on the bus. Sometimes RZA would make the journey with me. I would travel all over. I had family in Queens. I kind of adopted different styles and different hooks. Back then, [something like] “Yes, yes y’all,” was a hook because every MC used it before he jumped into his verse so we would incorporate things that certain neighborhoods would say. I incorporated many different styles and as the years went on I just kind of developed my own rap ability. I left from Shaolin and moved back to Brooklyn and around that time was when we formulated the All In Together Now crew.
Actually, that was my next question, so speak about that crew.
It was myself, Dirty, and RZA. It was sparked. We had this routine, you probably heard Dirty use it on a song or two, where we’d say, “All, all, all in together now, we getting paid, getting fresh for the weather now.” That routine was [something] that myself and Dirty used to do. He was a human beat box and I was Genius at the time. It was more of a “Ladi Dadi” type thing. That tape was kinda famous. We did that demo in ‘83 or ’84. I got on Cold Chillin’ in ’90 and one day Biz Mark was like, “You’re the Genius – All In Together Now!?” It was crazy… [Back in ‘83-’84] I was staying in Brooklyn and Unique, that was Dirty, was staying in Brooklyn. RZA was still in Shaolin. Dirty would come through my lab and we would hook up and RZA would come through on the weekend. My lab was the meeting place. This is around ’81 to ’84. We would make up these routines. I lived for it; I still do. I was constantly writing, constantly making up stuff. Sometimes Dirty would come over and I’d have the routine made, his part and my part. I used to write beats for him. I never did the beat box, but I used to write beats for him to do and then hum them to him when he’d come over. He was so nice with the beat box that he would be able to duplicate this beat. We had a bugged out way of communicating.
We would make these routines and we would travel all through the borough. I lived in Bed-Stuy at the time and O.D.B was in East New York. We would travel to Bushwick, which wasn’t too far. We would travel to Brownsville, travel all over looking for the dopest MC to battle. You would hear about MCs through word of mouth. Sort of like the kung fu flicks where you would travel looking for the best and you would challenge them. Friendly challenges though, nothing crazy, nothing disrespectful, until we battled this crew called the Dismasters – Mike Ski, he’s passed away, and Raven T who just came home from doing a lot of years. I think he got framed for something. But they were called the Dismasters and I guess they lived up to their name. Mike lived around the corner from me. We ran into each other one day, this was probably about ‘83. He was like, “You rhyme?” and I was like, “Yeah, I rhyme.” He kicked a thought and I kicked a thought. It was cool and the word got back and when I ran into his brother I was like, “[Mike Ski] ain’t as nice as me. He can’t walk in my shoes.” I was just throwing it like that. It got back to him and he took it real personal and he wanted to call a battle so we had a battle. The lyrics they were coming with were very disrespectful and we never rhymed like that. It almost- it got into a fight. It was crazy. Ever since that moment we started writing those kinds of rhymes just to have.
