In the first half of the decade, street dance remained a focal point. Double Dutch jump-rope competitions sponsored by McDonald’s drew thousands to Lincoln Square Center in Oakland. The San Francisco Street Breakers held a fundraising benefit, “Super Break Sunday,” at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts in 1985.
Ironically, street dance “got played out” after the success of Hollywood movies like Beat Street and Breakin’, and rap music moved to the center of hip-hop culture. Quickening the process were concerts by Black music stars like the Fresh Festival, the first national hip-hop tour, with headliners Run-DMC at the Oakland Coliseum. Local radio tentatively began to experiment with rap, notably KMEL-FM and its mix DJs such as Michael Erickson and the late Cameron Paul.
A flyer for the Fresh Festival, which arrived in Oakland in 1984.
“By 1985, there was this incredible scene in the South Bay,” says Adisa “The Bishop” Banjoko. As a teen DJ in San Bruno “who looked like Urkel,” he remembers traveling far and wide to buy records, from Creative Music Emporium in San Francisco to T’s Wauzi in Oakland. Meanwhile, nightclubs like Mothers and Studio 47 brought a fusion of hip-hop, freestyle and techno. “San Jose had underage hip-hop teenage clubs, and no other city had those,” he says. (Banjoko later became a rapper, a journalist, and the founder of Hip-Hop Chess Federation.)
Back in Oakland, Naru continued making tapes. “I come from a musical family. My cousin’s the Maestro” — a.k.a. producer Keenan Foster, who has worked with Too Short, Dru Down, and Askari X — “and a lot of my family sings. I got a drum machine, a little Yamaha keyboard. I would play my bass lines. We had double-cassette decks.” He collaborated with Taj “Turntable T” Tilghman, “who was dope on the turntables.” Turntable T eventually bought a Roland TR-808 drum machine, the instrument du jour for def beat MCs. “When that 808 came, that was it. Everyone loved that deck. Boom!”
“Gray tapes” that circulated weren’t the EP and album-length releases we’re familiar with today. Some tapes only had one song per side; or maybe just one song on one side, period. Artists were judged not only by their ability to rap engagingly for several minutes, but also to chop up a familiar beat like Whodini’s “Friends,” transforming it into something fresh and original; or even make rudimentary 808 beats. For example, Too Short drew attention for “rapping the longest,” as Bas explains, leading to songs that lasted eight or nine minutes.
Adisa Banjoko in the 1980s. (Courtesy Adisa Banjoko)
“Those tapes were everywhere. Everyone was trying to see what was possible,” says Banjoko. In 1987, he began making raps under the name MC Most Ill. His first song was “Rhyme Junkie.” “The truth was, some of it was really cool but a lot of it actually also sucked, because [the art form] was brand new. … The quality control was not there.”
On August 18, 1984, the San Francisco Examiner published an article called “Rapping with Too-Short,” the first story on the 18-year-old prodigy. Pacific News Service journalist Anthony Adams called Short’s songs “preacher-like yarns over pre-recorded music,” and noted that one of them was about automaker John DeLorean, whose conviction for cocaine trafficking made national news. Short claimed he and his partner Freddy B sold over 2,000 tapes.
The Chronicle-Examiner also frequently interviewed Dominique “Lady D” DiPrima, a New York transplant and San Francisco State University student who rapped, sung, and organized events. DiPrima possessed a rich family pedigree — her father was the jazz writer Amiri Baraka, her mother the beat poet Diane DiPrima. In late 1984, KRON-TV recruited her to host Home Turf, a Saturday-afternoon program that became appointment viewing for local teens.
“Everyone had a crush on Dominique,” says Naru, giggling.
Dominique DiPrima, pictured here hosting a 1987 episode of ‘Home Turf’ on KRON-4. (SFSU Television Archive)
The First Bay Area Rap Record Opens the Floodgates
One of the under-acknowledged aspects of early hip-hop is the way elder Black musicians shepherded young artists into the recording industry.
The late Sylvia Robinson, who was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2022, initially emerged in the mid-’50s as one-half of Mickey & Sylvia, who scored a national hit with “Love Is Strange.” As a ’70s solo artist and producer, Robinson made slinky, Eartha Kitt-like erotic disco capers such as “Pillow Talk” and “Sweet Stuff.” After discovering hip-hop when she heard DJ Lovebug Starski at a party, Robinson formed Sugar Hill Records, and turned three rapping teens she found in New Jersey into its first act, the Sugarhill Gang.
This process of soul veterans working with young people resulted in independent 12” singles that mirrored — if not yet accurately capturing — the nascent rap sound at a time when big companies virtually ignored it. With his Mercury Records contract, Kurtis Blow was the only act with a major album deal. A handful of other pioneers like DJ Hollywood scored one-off 12” deals.
A similar process played out in the Bay Area.
The first Bay Area rap record is widely considered to be Phil “Motorcycle Mike” Lewis and the Rat Trap Band’s “Super Rat,” a 1981 boogie-funk single notoriously released by East Oakland heroin kingpin Milton “Mickey Mo” Moore’s Hodisk Records. The name “Hodisk” was a cheeky reference to his onetime side business as a pimp. (Moore has since reformed and is now a pastor in West Oakland.) In fact, Mickey Mo boasts in his 1996 autobiography The Man: The Life Story of a Drug Kingpin, “Hodisk Records became the first record company on the West Coast to release a rap record.” (The first L.A. rap record, Disco Daddy and Captain Rapp’s “The Gigolo Rapp,” was also released in 1981.)
Mickey Mo has another claim to rap lore: In 1980, he helped finance an Oakland Coliseum concert headlined by L.A. funk band War, with the Sugarhill Gang as a supporting act. Journalist Lee Hildebrand’s pre-concert interview with the Gang in the Oakland Tribune was the first mention of rap music in the local press. A second funk-rap novelty, Steve Walker’s “Tally Ho!,” also appeared in 1981. In 1983, San Francisco’s Debo & Brian released the electro-funk EP This Is It. The momentum had started.
“I had made this vow that I would never ever do anything having to do with rap,” laughs Claytoven Richardson. During his long career, the Berkeley-born, Oakland-raised Richardson worked with Aretha Franklin, Kenny G, Whitney Houston, Elton John, and Celine Dion. But in the early ’80s, he was best known as a singer, producer, and arranger with hot dancefloor jazz-funk bands like Bill Summers & Summers’ Heat. His anti-rap stance reflected the music industry at large in the 1980s. “Nobody had the foresight to see that it would morph and change and do the things that it’s done,” he says.
Claytoven Richardson pictured in March 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Steven Simione/Getty Images)
Still, Richardson couldn’t avoid the increasingly popular genre when he scored a production deal at Fantasy Records, the onetime Berkeley jazz label also known for innovative acts like Sylvester and Cybotron, as well as one-off singles generated by a “throw it against the wall and see if it sticks” philosophy.
One of the records Richardson produced in that anything-goes environment was Mighty Mouth’s satirical complaint, “I’m All Rapped Out.” (He wasn’t the only one annoyed over rap; perhaps out of wishful thinking, a 1985 San Francisco Chronicle article referred to the “fast-fading hip-hop scene.”) A vocalist named Lawrence Pittman didn’t show up for the session, so Richardson performed the lyrics himself. However, Pittman showed up to rap on Mighty Mouth’s second single, “The Roaches,” which parodied Whodini’s electro hit, “Freaks Come Out at Night.”
Other scattered local raps appeared between 1985 and 1986. Former B-boy Jay King, just home from a stint in the Air Force and splitting time between Sacramento and Vallejo, formed a group called Frost and released “Battle Beat.” His friends Denzil Foster & Thomas McElroy produced it, as well as another electro-rap track, Sorcerey’s “Woo Baby.” Pittsburg rapper James “Red Beat” Briggs issued “Freak City,” which was later remixed by N.W.A. co-founder Arabian Prince. And there was Rodney “Disco Alamo” Brown, from Richmond, whose 12” “The Task Force” is an early example of Bay Area rap chronicling street life.
Too Short, pictured at his manager’s house in Oakland on September 21, 1987. (Steve Ringman/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
Most importantly, Too Short’s rising buzz led to a deal with deep East Oakland entrepreneur Dean Hodges’ 75 Girls label. Released in 1985, the resulting Don’t Stop Rappin’ was the first official album by a local rapper. While fans of a certain age still treasure protean electro-funk tracks like “Girl” — which E-40 referenced on his 1998 hit, “Earl, That’s Yo Life” — the album couldn’t compare to his raunchy and wickedly hilarious “special request” tapes.
It was during this period that Naru finally got his chance in the studio. Since 1984, UC Berkeley station KALX-FM served as home to “Music for the People,” a Sunday-morning community affairs and music show hosted by the late Charles “Natty Prep” Douglass, as well as DJs like Billy “Jam” Kiernan (who also broadcast on San Francisco State University station KUSF-FM), David “Davey D” Cook, and funkster Rickey “The Uhuru Maggot” Vincent. When Naru won a 1986 rap contest hosted by Billy Jam on KALX, he earned a recording session with Richardson at Fantasy Records.
“[Quick Draw] was a great rapper. He had a lot of great lyrics and ideas,” says Richardson. On “Rapaholic,” Richardson and session engineer Michael Denten (who later worked with Spice 1 and E-40) accompanied Quick Draw’s dexterous and energetic raps with sharp-angled percussive edits and sound effects reminiscent of The Art of Noise and Mantronix.
“Respect to Claytoven,” says Naru, who not only continues to make music but also owns a company, Hip Learning, that promotes childhood education with rap. He wasn’t entirely satisfied with the “Rapaholic” experience: “They made the record sound hella more polished. It was [supposed to be] a little more underground than that.” However, he adds, “[Claytoven] taught us a lot in the studio about the mics they use and how to mix. It was a good experience.”
A photocopied flyer advertising Sir Quick Draw’s single ‘Rapaholic.’ (Courtesy Naru )
A Radio Breakthrough — And a Kid Named Hammer
As the trajectory of Bay Area hip-hop waxed and waned, three catalyzing moments brought the scene into focus.
The first was an R&B track. Timex Social Club’s “Rumors” captured the pulse of Bay Area youth culture, from Marcus Thompson and Alex Hill’s skittering electro-funk bass and drums to singer Michael Marshall’s distinctly regional accent and coy recitation of schoolyard gossip (“Did you hear the one about Michael? Some say he must be gay…”) Produced by Jay King and Denzil Foster and released on King’s Jay Records in February 1986, it mushroomed into a top ten Billboard pop hit and dominated radio all year.
But by the summer, Timex Social Club was falling apart and trading accusations with King over money and credit. The group’s only album Vicious Rumors — by that point it was just Michael Marshall — featured drum programming from CJ Flash and a shout-out to KALX’s Natty Prep, who helped break “Rumors” on his “Music and Life” show. Marshall retreated from the spotlight before re-emerging as the hook man on the Luniz’ 1995 smash “I Got 5 on It.”
After breaking with Timex Social Club, King formed a group called Jet Set and signed a deal with Warner Bros. Records. The group changed their name to Club Nouveau before debuting with the single “Jealousy.” A follow-up, the Bill Withers cover “Lean on Me,” went to number-one on the Billboard Hot 100, while Club Nouveau’s debut album Life, Love & Pain went platinum.
Singers Samuelle Prater, Jay King and Valerie Watson of Club Nouveau performs at the U.I.C. Pavilion in Chicago, Illinois in August 1987. (Raymond Boyd/Getty Images)
King’s growing stardom rippled across the Bay and reached Felton Pilate, the Vallejo keyboardist, singer, and producer best known as a driving force in Bay Area funk stars Con Funk Shun. The two had already worked together on King’s onetime rap group Frost; Pilate engineered that record. Pilate soon added one of King’s projects, Sacramento R&B/rap group New Choice, to a growing slate of projects he produced and engineered at his Felstar Studios.
Felstar Studios was the culmination of work he had begun while not touring and rehearsing with Con Funk Shun. At his home studio on Sandpiper Drive in Vallejo, Pilate helped assemble records for fledgling local artists. “I never thought of myself as just a studio,” he says, where he simply records his clients. “I have a little experience here. I’ve got several gold albums. Here, let me pass on some of this knowledge.” When asked if he considered himself a mentor, he demurs, even though that’s arguably what he was.
When Pilate opened Felstar Studios on Sonoma Boulevard, his trusted associate was James Earley, a young engineer whom he credits for adding a more contemporary sensibility to the Studios’ output. Among the locals who came to them were M.V.P., a family trio consisting of Earl Stevens, Danell Stevens, and Brandt Jones. Their 1988 12”, The Kings Men, also included Tanina Stevens and Angela Pressley, who called themselves Sugar ‘N’ Spice. The members of M.V.P. updated their stage names to E-40, D-Shot and B-Legit, added Tanina as Suga T, and evolved into The Click, arguably became the most famous rap group to emerge from Vallejo.
M.V.P., a 1988 Vallejo rap group featuring Busy D, E-40 and Legit (L–R). The three would later add E-40’s sister Suga T and become known as The Click. (Gerry Ericksen / Rushforce Records)
In 1986, Pilate and Earley both had solo deals at Berkeley’s Fantasy Records. It was there that Pilate met a former Oakland A’s batboy named Stanley “Holyghost Boy” Burrell through Fantasy Records producer Fred L. Pittman. “Fred would often hire me to do keyboard arrangements for him,” says Pilate. When Pittman asked him to play keys for Holyghost Boy, Pilate responded, “Hey Fred, why don’t you let me take the reins on this?”
As a classically trained jazz and classical musician, Pilate didn’t think much of rap, even though Con Funk Shun not only included a rap verse on a 1982 single, “Ain’t Nobody Baby”; but also made “Electric Lady,” a 1985 hit produced by Larry Smith of Whodini fame that landed in the top five of Billboard’s Black Singles chart. “Musically, I wasn’t a fan, but as a producer, ‘I said I can do this,’” he says. “Like everyone else, Con Funk Shun wanted to be relevant, and rap was all over the radio.”
The tracks Burrell brought to Pilate consisted of him rapping over sparse Yamaha RX5 drum-machine parts. Pilate responded by going into “study mode.” He listened to the rap stuff that was getting airplay like Doug E. Fresh & the Get Fresh Crew. As a result, the skittering percussion on Burrell’s “Let’s Get It Started” is reminiscent of the go-go-inspired arrangements on Doug E. Fresh hits like “The Show” and “All the Way to Heaven.”
MC Hammer films the music video for ‘Let’s Get It Started’ at Sweet Jimmie’s nightclub in downtown Oakland, March 19, 1988. (Deanne Fitzmaurice/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
“My thing was to make it more music-driven than beat-driven,” says Pilate. In many cases, he simply “listened to what [Burrell] was talking about and wrote a straight R&B song underneath it.” He also gives credit to Earley, who helped refine the drum programming and brought “that younger ear” to the project. They incorporated stock horn stabs from a battery of Juno, Roland, and Yamaha drum machines. Meanwhile, Kent “The Lone Mixer” Wilson and Bryant “D.J. Redeemed” Marable added rhythmic scratches by cutting up Curtis Mayfield and Beastie Boys records.
After the demos were finished, Fantasy Records dropped Pilate, Earley and Burrell from their deals. “They weren’t really sure how to market any of us,” says Pilate. Then, he chuckles, “The next time I ran into the Holyghost Boy, he had changed his name to MC Hammer.” After forming Bustin’ Records in Fremont with financial help from Oakland A’s ballplayers like Mike Davis and Dwayne Murphy, Hammer turned the Pilate demos into three 12”s — “Ring ’Em,” “The Thrill Is Gone” and “Let’s Get It Started” — and the 1987 album Feel My Power. “I was like, man, those were rough mixes! You were supposed to come back and let me fix that!” Pilate laughs.
Everyone involved in Bay Area hip-hop has vivid memories of MC Hammer blowing up. Near-mythical stories of his local takeover abound, like attending local concerts surrounded by a massive crew; or tearing up the dance floor at The Silks, a popular nightclub in Emeryville.
MC Hammer and Fenton Pilate in modern times. Pilate engineered and co-produced MC Hammer’s first recordings. (Courtesy Felton Pilate)
Today, it’s worth revisiting Feel My Power and 1988’s Let’s Get It Started. Released after Hammer signed with Capitol Records, Let’s Get It Started found Hammer and Pilate remixing those original demos while adding vital new tracks like “Pump It Up.” The results are bombastic and vibrant dance-floor jams as ecstatic as anything by Kid ‘n’ Play and Salt-n-Pepa. Hammer’s subsequent leap into pop superstardom with 1990’s Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em and the ubiquity of “U Can’t Touch This” obscure just how great those early tracks are.
Eight Woofers in the Trunk
MC Hammer’s major-label arrival in 1988 capped a year of Bay Area hip-hop on the cusp of national exposure.
After Too Short issued Born to Mack in the fall of 1987 on his Dangerous Music label, Jive Records picked it up. (Dangerous Music also issued Dangerous Crew, a compilation of vital Bay Area acts like Spice-1, Rappin’ 4-Tay, and the female duo Danger Zone.) Digital Underground’s playful and psychedelic “Underwater Rimes / Your Life’s a Cartoon” led to a deal with Tommy Boy. Local talent waited in the wings, including rapper/producer Paris (A.T.C.’s “Cisco Jam”), Sway & King Tech (Flynamic Force EP), Dangerous Dame (“The Power That’s Packed”), and MC Twist and the Def Squad (“Just Rock”). And the late Cameron Paul, known for his “Beats & Pieces” breakbeats, remixed Queens trio Salt-n-Pepa’s 1987 track “Push It” into a global phenomenon.
Cameron Paul, who provided the spine of New Orleans bounce music with ‘Brown Beats’ and recorded a smash-hit remix of Salt ‘n’ Pepa’s ‘Push It,’ was also a prominent club and radio megamix DJ in San Francisco. (YouTube)
Incidentally, the first local group to score a major label deal wasn’t Hammer, but Surf MCs, a Berkeley group that Profile Records promoted as a Beastie Boys-like rap/rock crossover. Their 1987 album Surf or Die proved a flop.
Yet the third moment that catalyzed Bay Area hip-hop wasn’t a singular record like Timex Social Club’s “Rumors,” or an artist like Hammer and Short. It was the sound of walloping, all-enveloping bass.
Made for surgically enhanced car and jeep stereos, the bass colossus is as much a feature of hip-hop in the mid-’80s as the pounding Roland TR-808 machine, from Rick Rubin’s production on LL Cool J’s “Rock the Bells” and T La Rock’s “It’s Yours” to Rodney O and DJ Joe Cooley’s “Everlasting Bass” and Dr. Dre’s work on Eazy-E’s “The Boyz-N-The Hood.” It also mirrors the crack-cocaine epidemic that began to blight and distort communities across the country. As street life turned treacherous, the specter of the hustler, and whether to become one, cast a growing shadow.