Hip Hop History Month #7

Let's start with the head of the snake; Steve Yano. During college, Steve purchased a van and, with his friend Gary Arita, started a gardening route with several major commercial businesses, but during midterms, they both stopped working to study and were fired shortly after. Looking for a new job, Steve went to Cal State LA’s Career Center where he saw a flyer on the bulletin board seeking a reliable person with a van to sell music. Steve and Susan (his wife) went for an interview with Bob McNellis and got a job selling tapes and albums at the Orange County swap meet. Eventually, Steve and Susan wanted to go off on their own and their boss agreed to continue selling product to them. They moved to the Long Beach swap meet where they had the best stall and their business boomed. Eventually the property that the swap meet sat on was sold and they moved their business to the Vermont Swap Meet in Gardena.

Before they graduated, Steve and Susan were able to buy a motor home and their first house together, where they hosted weekly disco nights every Monday. Steve graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and started a graduate program in school. But after a shadowing program, Steve realized he could make more money working 3 days a week at the swap meet than he could make working 5 days a week as a school psychologist, so he dropped out of the program with just a few units left to go to instead, opened a wholesale distributorship selling cut out product with Bob McNellis. Eventually they ended their partnership and Steve and Susan went back to just selling records at the swap meet. They moved to the Roadium swap meet in Torrance, where Steve met Dr. Dre and immediately recognized how talented he was. It was at this point, they begin to work together to sell mixtapes; the REAL kind. The kind where a DJ plays and mixes popular songs together. His mixtapes did however, contain rap intros from then-underground rappers such as MC Ren, Ice Cube, Eazy-E, Sir Jinx, Dazzie Dee, just to name a few. It should also be mentioned that, Steve introduced Dre and Eazy to one another (yeah, that should've been mentioned in the movie). Dre would later use this friendship as an avenue to leave the image he was growing tired of with The World Class Wrecking Cru. I swear, I am AWESOME at tying this stuff together!!! Enter Tony A, The Wizard.

At the age of 11, Tony first experienced what a DJ was when he went with his brother Mario Alvarez to Noah's Ark (also known as Infinity and Grand Central Station) night club in the east side Long Beach. From that day forward he wanted to become a DJ. That's is also how he met a soon to be popular DJ named Joe Cooley; but that's another story. Anyway, shortly after he began working for Steve and Susan Yano at the Vermont Swap Meet in Gardena, selling those vinyl records and cassettes. He started DJing at his Junior High School noon dances and then went on to DJ house parties, birthday parties, quinceañera's, etc. Tony A. In 1987, was featured on his first vinyl record single titled "You Better Think", by rapper Dazzie Dee, Produced by Sir Jinx on Thin-Lyne Records; the record label of the World-famous VIP in Long Beach, California (yet another landmark). Growing even more confident in his skills, the following year, Tony A won 1st place at Battle of The DJs at Samerika Hall in Carson.

While Dr. Dre was producing various artists on Ruthless Records, he asked Tony A if he wanted to take over doing the mixtapes for Steve. He no longer had the time to do them, and trusted no one more to take over the mantle. Tony agreed, and began creating the mixtapes. His first mixtape they released was titled "Breakdown". It should be noted, these mixtapes were "must haves" back in the day. Similar to Mix-Master Spade, they were burning the street up, but in a lot more neighborhoods.

There was a kid who worked at a nearby booth who use to visit Steve's booth on a regular. A young rapper that was trying to get on. Steve liked him, and introduced him to Tony. This kid went by the name of Hi-C. It was this connection that wove together "The 304" (early beeper code for "hoe" when you turn the letters upside down), and/or "The Skanless Crew". In 1991, Tony A released his final mixtape titled "Bullshit" which featured Hi-C, DJ Quik, 2nd II None and AMG.

During his mixtape career, he created 30+ mixtapes. It was one of these mixtapes, that caught the attention of Hollywood Records (a Disney label....which is still hilariously funny to me). They approached Steve about the mixes, which had Tony & Steve thinking the stranger was an FBI agent wanting to lock them up and fine them for "piracy" (LOL).

They eventually struck a deal. Steve Yano established his own label called "Skanless Records". They began recording their debut album titled Hi-C Featuring Tony A at Audio Achievements in Torrance, California. This was Tony's first hand at producing. They recorded half of their album and eventually finished at Skanless Studios in Alhambra, and released it December 10, 1991. The album peaked at 152 on the Billboard 200, at number 21 on the Hot Rap Songs for the song titled "Sitting In The Park", at number 53 on the Top R&B/Hip Hop Albums, at number 3 on the Heatseekers Albums for 24 weeks. In 1993, Tony A. produced half of the Hi-C album titled Swing'n.

We lost Steve Yano from an accident on September 17, 2014. This man, like Greg Mack, was part of the mechanism that catapulted hip-hop on the west coast. He too, launched the careers of various young artists, and plugging individuals who would later see more success than they would have dreamed possible, because of him. Personally, I wish I were closer to him. I met him once while with Tony, and I could tell you, he was an extremely solid "lil Asian man".

Tony A has gone far and beyond to keep his memory alive. He produced and directed a documentary called "The Roadium Documixery" where he tells the story of the legacy of Steve Yano and The Roadium, with various people associated with it, like Alonzo Lonzo Williams, like Violet Brown (who, I will cover on the NEXT hip-hop history post) and others. He also has a YouTube podcast every Sunday and Wednesday called "Roadium Radio" from 7pm-10pm PST.

I've known Tony since the 80s, and no one is more proud of him than I am. He is one of my oldest friends, and I really don't think he gets the recognition he deserves. He is a staple in westcoast hip-hop and should be recognized at that. This concludes the hip-hop history post for today. Be easy!