Hip-Hop Evolution - Second Season

At some point, all true hip-hop fans

want to know about the culture's roots,

and for me, as an MC,

hip-hop's history is my history, too.

So, the opportunity to hear the story

from the people who created it

is every hip-hop head's dream realized.

What is that?

From the moment New York's pioneers created this new form of music,

based on break beats and rhymes,

its appeal was instant,

and its momentum was unstoppable.

L.A. broke through first,

adding booming funk and hard rhymes to the mix.

But this was just the beginning of hip-hop's evolution,

because from coast to coast,

hungry innovators in every city, town, and neighborhood

wanted their say.

And in true hip-hop fashion, they were going to be heard.

By the early '80s,

rap scenes were bubbling up in every corner of the U.S.

and one of the first places for the culture to take root was here,

in the tropical heat of Miami.

Miami was a party town before hip-hop hit.

Influenced by a Caribbean culture

and a strong mobile DJ scene,

it was all about outdoor block parties and big bass.

Hip-hop's first Southern ambassador emerged from those parties,

an ambitious Jamaican and Bahamian DJ with a rebellious streak.

He's gone by a lot of names,

but today, most people call him Uncle Luke.

-Hey, what's up, man? - You good?

How you feeling, man? You in the neighborhood.

- Yes, sir. -This the community of Liberty City.

How much of the early Miami bass scene

and the people involved were from here?

Everybody was from Liberty City, you know, everybody.

Here, in Liberty City, that's where it all started, and it all began.

It all-- Right in that yard, right there.

Right-- The window was pointing this way right here, and I used to DJ

out of the window, onto the grass.

And I would have the people come right up there to the grass,

-and they would be dancing in the grass. -Reggae records and...

Reggae, all kind of records.

I was the DJ trash talking on the microphone,

had the records in the little shed,

and I'm DJing.

So, I had a little business going on out the house.

- Yeah. -Young entrepreneur.

Miami's Luther Campbell works as a cook at a hotel,

but he says this is when he really gets cooking,

performing as the leader of The Ghetto Style DJs,

playing music in the streets for poor black youth

in the Liberty City section of Miami.

I was an up-and-coming DJ.

We would DJ in the pit at African Square Park.

It was, like, literally down in a hole.

And the pit was our home.

Most people come down here in the sun and fun, and it's all great,

but Miami, you know, had its challenges.

The trouble started at African Square Park.

Street discos were going on past closing time there.

Officers sent to stop the music a little after 10:00

said rock and bottle throwing youths then moved from the park.

I was DJing this one night,

and this officer, he ran the whole neighborhood.

White guy. His name was Officer Butler. Everybody was scared of him.

He was this notorious bad motherfucker.

So, he came to the pit and, "All you niggas get out of this hole here!

Y'all shut the fuckin' music down."

And I was like, "Fuck you!"

And, before you know it,

we had a nice, good, old-fashioned

Liberty City riot.

- -

My uncle taught me to watch the news

and understand what they're really talking about.

Police estimate they made 25 to 30 arrests:

Some for looting,

others like this pickup, apparently for prowling.

Another black person acting like an asshole,

another white guy acting like a good guy.

And they would drill that into me.

So, that kind of got me really politically active and aware.

We young disco groups,

We just ask the city to give us a better facility to play in.

Right now, you know, the world, there's no jobs,

so you've got to have something to take the people's mind off of

going out and doing something wrong.

We had no skating rinks, no teen discos. We had nothing.

So, it was always into me. I wanted to own my own.

I'm going to work for the man for a minute,

but I always want to own my own.

I remember the day like it was yesterday when I told the guys, I was like,

"Yo, we got to own our own teen disco."

They were looking at me like, "What? Are you serious?

How we going to do that, you know?

Black people don't own their own business."

But I wasn't raised to lay down,

so I raised enough money

and then opened up the Pac Jam Teen Disco.

- -

You'll go in and it's dark.

You got the smoke. You got the green lights going.

And music's loud, you dancing, you sweating.

You looking for the chicks.

You're with your boys, your little crew,

and y'all fresh to death.

You got the silk shirt, the corduroys,

the M&M boots with the fisherman hat.

And on the weekends, we would go to the Pac Jam,

and we wouldn't have to leave the club.

We were 12 and 13 years old,

and we was leaving the club at 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning.

It'd be DJs like Ghetto Style DJs,

Pure Funk DJs...

Jam Pony Express.

You can't forget them boys.

And there was walls and walls of speakers.

Then when the bass would drop...

you fucking felt your heart come out your chest.

That's the other thing I heard is, you had to have that bass.

Oh, no. If you didn't have that bass, you weren't shakin' shit.

It was dirty, grimy, and deep.

And that's how the Miami sound was defined.

I became like this legend,

so I wanted to discover

records you don't hear on the radio, and that nobody else is playing.

And that's what I did. I found that "Beat Box" record

by these guys from California.

The "Beat Box" record, it was electronic.

I took it to the Jam that weekend,

and I put the record on.

And when they heard that, people just lost they fuckin' minds.

So, that's when I brought 2 Live Crew down to Miami.

Miami loved the booming bass of 2 Live Crew's "Beat Box,"

and Luke, always the hustler,

recognized ,this as an opportunity to move beyond being a promoter.

So, he founded his own record company,

Luke Skywalker Records,

and made this unknown California trio his first signing.

How did Luke come to be part of the group?

-Because, at this point, he's a promoter. - Promoter, manager...

We started doing some shows,

Fresh Kid Ice is you know, bashful, shy.

Marquis didn't have a particular focus.

It was, like, chaos.

Luke is standing on the sidelines, looking at all this

saying, "Man, they bombing out there.

I can't let this happen."

He just felt like his money was about to go down the drain.

So, he took his DJ skills--

You know, the type of DJing they were doing in Miami,

they would talk over the records.

And he started doing all of this stuff in between the songs.

He did it two or three times, and he said,

"Man, if I'm gonna be going out there doing this stuff, I gotta get paid."

So, that's how he became a fourth member in the group.

When I joined the group, I told the guys,

"Yo, we don't want to sound like Run-D.M.C.

We don't want to sound like Ice-T.

We don't want to sound like anything that you have ever heard."

We have a dance that we do called "Throw the D."

"Throw the Dick".

That was the name of it.

So I said, "Do a song off of 'Throw the D,'

and I'mma make the song big."

I said, "It's got to have a lot of bass." And then we made...

the nastiest record you could ever imagine.

That Throw the D record set it off.

It was our first hip hop record, was 2 Live Crew.

That was our thing.

You know, It came from Luke.

Know what I'm saying? It came from Ghetto Style DJs.