Hip Hop History Month #5

Mix-Master Spade, who's real name was Frank Antonia Williams, passed March 2005 after a motorcycle accident. He was a producer, and DJ. He is regarded as a West Coast hip hop pioneer, and also credited for being the FIRST rappers to make harmonized rap, who Arrested Development's "Speech" along with Atlanta based rapper Nelly repopularized later on. Spade is mostly known for his tracks with Toddy Tee, King T, and The Compton Posse. He released several singles in the late 1980s, including "Just Say No", "Genius Is Back" and "Gangster Boogie".

So where did it all start? Let us begin. Spade began DJing in the late 1970s when he was attending school in New York and saw someone DJ at a park, and later, at a DJ battle with DJ Hollywood, Grandmaster Flash, and a few others. He was eventually taught the craft. He then returned to Los Angeles and bought himself a turntable and mixer. Spade began taping himself DJing and eventually sold them as tapes. As he said in an interview: "One day I start taping my self just to hear me practice and some of my homeboys was like listening, and they started stealing my tapes and they started selling them. They was like, "man. Dude gave me 20 bucks for that tape". I said what? So I started making tapes and selling them. I had a shoe box full of them one time, and I was like, selling them for like $5 and $10 and I was getting around making a name for myself with these tapes. I met these drug dealers right and I had a shoebox full of them. I was on a mission. I had like 30 tapes. I'm use to selling like one to each person. Trying to talk them into buying them and they listen and once they listen they hooked and become customers forever". He wasn't lying. These tapes were flying all over Compton at the time. The early 80s, Spade got more and more serious about selling his tapes.

Daryl Gates and the LAPD has just instituted their battering ram to the neighborhoods. If you don't know what that is, it was basically a tank that destroyed houses in an attempt to invade a household believed to be selling drugs, before they had a chance to dispose of it. You may remember a scene in Straight Outta Compton when Eazy E narrowly escaped in the beginning of the film. Anyway, Toddy-Tee asked Spade if he wanted to go to the studio to work on what will soon become a hit single, "Batterram". It instantly got steady rotation on 1580 K-DAY, and you would be hard pressed to find a DJ that didn't have a pair or two. Not many people outside of Compton know, there were actually two versions; a regular version and a street version. Oh, and Dr. Dre produced it along with other songs. Dre did Batterram. Dre did Just Say No. Dre and DJ Pooh collaborated on the Genius Is Back. Pooh did You Better Bring A Gun.

After the release, Spade slowed down a little and "did what he did", until Toddy Tee once again convinced him that it was "his turn" to do a record. And that was the birth of "Just Say No", which, according to Greg Mack, became one of THE most requested songs on the radio.

What was once just homies and acquaintances doing songs together, as individuals, it slowly began to become The Compton Posse, with Mix-Master Spade, DJ Pooh and King T (who had just dropped Pay Back's A Mutha), Mix-Master Ken, and Scotty D.

Before being tragically taken, Mix-Master Spade was going to begin a project called "Return of the Compton Godfather", featuring himself and all the artists he's worked with and/or he felt owed him favors. We will never get that project. Rest in peace, to the legendary Mix-Master Spade.