There’s no person higher to talk with ahead of hip-hop’s fiftieth anniversary than the world-renowned Kid Capri.
After all, the stellar DJ proudly hails from hip-hop’s birthplace — a spot that we all know locally because the Boogie Down Bronx. He has been an instrumental force in music for the reason that late Eighties, making smash hits for such artists as Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, Heavy D, 50 Cent and even the Queen of Pop, Madonna herself.
As Aug. 23 approaches — the fateful date that DJ Kool Herc first broke a beat at a back-to-school party in 1973 — Kid Capri took time on “Renaissance Man” to reflect on the pioneers accountable for the genre’s explosion throughout the past half-century.
Kid especially sounded off on the influence of his good friend from The Bronx and occasional show partner Grandmaster Flash.
“He’ll [still] come to my shows to see this pandemonium occurring,” Kid told me. Giving the DJ his propers, he told me Flash will “just turn around and say, ‘Yo, I’m so happy with you, man. You only took it and made it what it’s [now]. You took it to a different level and were in a position to bring money to it.’”
“Have in mind, these dudes [like Flash], they’re my heroes,” Kid added, “because they didn’t get the cash, the accolades and all of the stuff that they need to have gotten that I got.”
Flash, who began his profession dumpster-diving around Hunts Point to seek out DJ equipment, also motivated Kid in his trade.
By the point the Nineties rolled along, Kid’s mixtapes made it abundantly clear that a DJ was as necessary if not greater than being an emcee.
“I desired to be checked out as an artist. I didn’t need to be checked out as any person just playing records or standing behind any person,” Kid said. “I desired to be a force to be reckoned with against the guy that has the large hit platinum record. And that was my focus.”
Because the genre evolved to a world enterprise, so did Kid Capri’s repertoire. He gained national recognition because the DJ for Russell Simmons’ series “Def Comedy Jam.”
“I owe plenty of lessons to that,” he said. “I’m appreciative for what [Simmons] did with that since it was an enormous, big moment for me … It modified my life within the craziest way.”
Kid’s time on the HBO staple led to the zeniths of his star-studded profession.
The primary was winning a Grammy for producing on Jay-Z’s 1998 album, “Vol. 2 … Hard Knock Life.”
The opposite was narrating Kendrick Lamar’s Pulitzer Prize-winning album, 2017’s “Rattling.”
It stays the one hip-hop album to receive that award.
“I told [Kendrick], ‘Why did you come and get me?’” Kid recalled. “He said, ‘I do know what you probably did, Kid, for music. I do know what you probably did for the DJ business. I do know what you’ve done, period.’”
Throughout his several many years within the hip-hop game, Kid — a devout lover of battle rap — has also preached a message essential to the culture and one we are able to all get behind: cutting violence out of the music.
To accomplish that, he’s signed on to the relaunch of the Stop the Violence campaign — an artist-led movement that began within the late Eighties that advocates sending a greater message through hip-hop.
“That’s not what music is. You shouldn’t should die over music — something that’s purported to be fun,” Kid said. “I hope people really get what’s at stake … Once you go and make these gang records or these records about killing people, inciting this stuff, it just makes [hip-hop] go down further.”
