Anyone who's done their homework on Public Enemy knows that the group's origins lie with Spectrum, a Long Island DJ crew which later rebranded itself as Spectrum City. The crew originally consisted of brothers Hank and Keith Shocklee, who would go on to found the Bomb Squad, and Richard Griffin, who would become Professor Griff of Public Enemy security/dance troupe the S1Ws. Chuck D (then Chuckie D) linked up with Spectrum around 1979 and helped the crew land a Saturday-night radio show called the Spectrum Mixx Show on WBAU in the early '80s.
Eventually, the group began making music of its own, and in 1984, as Spectrum City, they released the
Lies / Check Out the Radio single on the Vanguard label. This 12" vinyl also featured rapper Aaron Allen aka Butch Cassidy, who was like Chuck's hypeman before Flavor Flav. (Although Flav, then known as MC DJ Flavor, was in the picture at that time as well, he wasn't on this single.) You can read about all of this and much more in biographer Russell Myrie's
Don't Rhyme for the Sake of Riddlin': The Authorized Story of Public Enemy, which I can't possibly recommend highly enough for anyone interested in the history of Long Island hip-hop.
However, what you won't read about in that biography (and will find little information about anywhere else, really) are two acetate recordings Spectrum did before they became Spectrum City: NBC and Funky Revolution. These releases were plated and mastered by the Sunshine Sound label, which did a number of acetates for disco and early rap projects from 1974-1982. Though Myrie's book mentions Spectrum putting out mixtapes around this time, it never mentions any acetate recordings. That being said, Keith Shocklee may have alluded to these when, in a 2017 interview with the
Conversations with Bianca website, he said: "Most of the stuff we’d make in my mom’s basement, it’s called an acetate of a song. We had to mic the drummer and a bass player, it was so primitive. We recorded it all on to a 2-track tape, in one take."
NBC and Funky Revolution do fit the bill in terms of fidelity, but there seem to be more than just drums, bass and vocals on the records, as you'll hear. "NBC" features that network's familiar three-tone chimes as a sort of refrain for the group's funky jam session, along with some additional electronic noises that theoretically could just be harnesseed feedback or another kind of recording trick, if not a synth or other instrument. Regardless, one might say the free-form electro sounds foreshadow the dissonance that would be the Bomb Squad's calling card in later years. And though there are very few vocals on "NBC," Chuck D's distinct voice is immediately recognizable in the intro. The same goes for "Funky Revolution," on which Chuck kicks things off at the :25 mark, with "Check it out, you ready to funk, Butch?" to which Cassidy responds, "Hey, you know that, homeboy." From there, someone intones, "How about The Wizard?" to which Chuck adds "K-Jee 2-3," spelling out Keith Shocklee's old DJ handle, The Wizard K-Jee. After this, Chuck and Butch sing along with the record, calling out dance moves such as the moonwalk while referencing tunes like Edwin Starr's "War (What Is It Good For)." If this sounds totally unlike the hard-hitting Public Enemy we know and love, it's important to remember that this record comes from the days when Spectrum was primarily a party group and hip-hop was still very new, so Long Island listeners were much more accustomed to funk than rap. Nevertheless, at the 7:44 mark of "Funky Revolution," you begin to hear some vocals that are closer to rapping than singing. The anti-disco, pro-funk rally is a far cry from Public Enemy, but it's them.
The rest that can be said about these cuts comes from the
Discogs listings and Anthony Meijer, the person responsible for uploading the tracks to Soundcloud. He says, "Someone posted these acetates on ebay years ago (pre 2008 I think), way before everyone jumped on acetates and test pressings." The seller who auctioned off these acetates provided no info other than the names of the records, so Meijer is left guessing like the rest of us. One thing is certain, though: as two of the only four known songs released on record by Spectrum (City), these jams represent crtically important primary sources in the history of Public Enemy and by extension, Long Island hip-hop. To that point, they certainly pre-date the earliest songs posted on this website heretofore and could in fact be among the first examples of plated rap recordings by a Long Island artist (I'm yet to find anything else pre-1984; Chuck D joined Spectrum in '79, and Sunshine Sound closed down in 1982, so these records would have to be from sometime between those years). Therefore, though I don't own the records, I am honored to be able to bring them to you with this, our 500th post.
A special thanks to Anthony Meijer for uploading these acetates to Soundcloud and for telling me how he came across them, and to everyone who has visited this website, shared a link to it, or commented on a post. Your continued interest, support and engagement are all deeply appreciated.
***EDIT: 2/11/20***
Last night, I dug up a
2005 interview with Aaron "Butch Cassidy" Allen by Jessie "Orosco" Serwer. I know I've read and linked to this in the past, but apparently not since long before this post went up last year. In the interview, Allen provides tremendous insight into Spectrum's early years. Most notably, in response to a question about Professor Griff's involvement in the crew, Allen says, "We made a jam called 'NBA', like 'something boogie association' and Griff was playing timbales." It's certainly conceivable that "NBA" could have been "NBC," and the "boogie assocation" could have been the boogie corporation, coalition, or some other acronym, or these could be related tunes. Supporting the argument that they're one and the same, you can definitely hear "timbales" on the "NBC" acetate, and Allen's description of recording "NBA" certainly jives with Keith Shocklee's remarks about making acetates in his mom's basement. As Allen states, "There was a little room with turntables and a washing machine. We had the mics hooked up and made our first jam on a dub plate." Based on this assessment, I've added Professor Griff to the tags for this post.
