When I first heard "Rebel Without a Pause"..

Cassette tape recordings of many college, underground, and mainstream hip-hop radio shows

Nowadays it is easy to take for granted that there was a time when hip-hop was not as big on the radio as it is today.  As hip-hop music started to grow, the experience of how to listen to it proved to be an enriching one.  What was lacking at the time in streaming music services, satellite radio, or smartphones to store music, built a certain fortitude when having to record music from hip-hop radio shows on terrestrial radio stations onto cassette tapes.  When music filled up on one side of the cassette, it was common practice to break the tab off of the top of the tape in order to prevent that side of the tape from being recorded over.  This sounds primitive now but it was effective.  If I decided to record over what was previously recorded, all I had to do was place tape over the space or fill it with a tiny piece of tissue.  It was easy at the start of a show to hit PLAY+RECORD and fill up Side A of the cassette, but if you fell asleep, and did not flip the tape over to record Side B for the middle to end of the show? That was never good -- chances were that you would miss the part of the show when all the new, hot records would get played.  Thankfully, when auto-reverse tape decks came out, that helped alleviate this scenario.  To think back on how innovative that auto-reverse tape deck was is hilarious!  The good old days indeed.

A cassette with both tabs broken to prevent erasure on either side. 

In NYC as far as mainstream radio, hip-hop was relegated to mix shows on Friday and Saturday from 9pm to midnight on 98.7 KISS FM and 107.5 WBLS.  Other than this timeslot it was rare to hear hip-hop on these particular stations at any other time of the day, unless the song was REALLY popular like  “Roxanne Roxanne” by UTFO.  Contrasted with today where the same few songs are in rotation seemingly every hour each day.  Fortunately, there were options Monday thru Thursday in the form of underground and college mix show stations and often times these stations would debut songs well before they got recognized by the mainstream stations.  

  One such station was 90.3 FM WBAU at, Adelphi University in Long Island.  On Monday night into Tuesday morning, from 10pm to 1am.  I used to listen to the “Operating Room” hip-hop radio show hosted by Dr. Dre - who would go on to host Yo! MTV Raps - and was from the hip-hop group Original Concept, along with T-Money, Wildman Steve, and a host of others.  Even though Monday’s were school nights I used to listen religiously each week.  Digital radio tuners were around back then, but I had my radio boom box that had a manual tuner.  What does that mean you ask?  Well, unlike the mainstream stations which I could easily turn the dial to line the pointer up properly with the number of the station, most of these stations required PRECISE tuning of the dial.  It was possible that the dial needed to be turned so that it rested perfectly between two numbers for radio stations because the station you needed did not have a number represented on the dial.  So you had to guesstimate.  And if the station was on the lower end of the frequency, it may have required you to contort your body a certain way, like lifting your foot or leg up, in order to conduct the radio waves properly into the tuner.  Crazy as this sounds these are all true stories.  But these were the things we did because of the love of the music.

Boombox complete with manual tuner and tape deck. Batteries not included. 

 

    I remember one show in 1987 like it was yesterday.  Dr. Dre was talking, and said that he had an exclusive new record from Public Enemy that he was going to play called “Rebel Without A Pause”.  Public Enemy frontman Chuck D, had a show on this same radio station called Spectrum City Sound, along with other members of the PE production team The Bomb Squad Hank & Keith Shocklee.  I never listened to their radio show, but knew all about Public Enemy as they had just recently released their debut solo album “Yo! Bum Rush The Show”.  I LOVED Public Enemy when they first came out.  In my opinion Chuck D had the most powerful, distinctive voice and was a great emcee.  So hearing Dr. Dre say he had a new record from Public Enemy, was a big deal especially since their first album was still pretty new up to this point.  The problem for me was it was close to the midnight hour and I could feel myself starting to fade.  Luckily, I managed to turn the tape over in time, and press RECORD so if anything I knew the next day I would have the song on tape.     

My eyes were almost shut when Dr. Dre put that record on.  I remember hearing slight static on the record at first, before hearing the following:

“Brothers and sisters….Brothers and Sisters I DON’T KNOW WHAT THIS WORLD IS COMING TO”

And then the beat dropped...followed by the scratching...then that high pitched WHISTLING sound along with Chuck D’s voice:

YES

THE RHYTHM
THE REBEL
WITHOUT A PAUSE
I’M LOWERING MY LEVEL

I ROSE UP out of my bed and was now fully awake and at attention! I had NEVER heard anything like that in my life, and quite honestly have never heard anything like that since.  It was a religious experience.  If that song debuted at a cemetery the dead would have also risen.  Between the beat, that high pitched whistle that kept repeating, and Chuck’s voice, which on this record now sounded more powerful than Black Bolt of the Inhumans, it was like the greatest hip-hop record ever made.  Instant classic, not up for debate!  The greatest five minutes on wax.  And Dr. Dre knew he had one, because after the song ended, I am not even sure he let two minutes go by, without putting that record back on and letting it rock again.  And I had it on tape!  All I could think about was playing that tape over and over again, just so I could hear that sound again.  That repeating whistling sound.  Incredible.   When my father first heard the record he called it something akin to “interrogation music”.  I could imagine some military in the world playing “Rebel Without A Pause” endlessly until some POW broke! (I cannot find this tape to save my life today!) 

    I am not even sure how the next day went.  I imagine I took that tape to school, and asked my friends if they heard the song and played it for those who had not heard it.  I cannot even say for sure if I did that, but I will always remember what I did the night before.  The night WBAU debuted Public Enemy’s “Rebel Without A Pause” before ANY other station had it, and months before PE dropped their classic “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back” album which had “Rebel Without A Pause” on it.  I was living in a moment in hip-hop history, but did not even know it yet.  This was the song that solidified Public Enemy as legends in my mind.        

College mix shows and underground stations were where it was at if you were into hip-hop back then which is why I really do not trip off of what mainstream radio does nowadays when it comes to oversaturating the airwaves with the same few hip-hop songs.  For me mainstream radio stations were never tastemakers for hip-hop music.  Let’s go back to when Mr. Magic of 107.5 WBLS and their Rap Attack show played a demo version of one of Public Enemy’s earliest songs “Public Enemy #1” and how Mr. Magic dissed them after the song talking to co-host Marley Marl, “Marley the beat is dope but the rapping is kinda weak” along with the infamous line “no more music by the suckers” which PE ultimately sampled on another one of their songs “Cold Lampin’ Wit Flavor” from Public Enemy’s very own Flavor Flav.  Magic even took a shot at Dr. Dre and the WBAU crew here (“Dr. Duck and the boys from Long Island..Woody Woodpecker and the guys from down the dial”)

check it out: 

The following Monday, Dr. Dre played this bit from Mr. Magic on their show, and you can hear their reaction to the diss at around the 4:46 second mark. Hysterical. 

Do you remember the first time you heard “Rebel Without A Pause”, or “Public Enemy No.1”?  What about the first time you heard any of your favorite hip-hop records?  Sound off in the comments below.   

Peace, Love & Unity