DJ Disco Wiz in der Dokumentation »The Coolest Year in Hell«, 2007 (Foto: Corra Films)

HipHop-Erfahrungen für zehn Leben

Teil 2 des Interviews mit DJ Disco Wiz

Text, Interview: Jens Pacholsky Fotos: DJ Disco Wiz

Goon: How does it feel for you to go back to the Bronx nowadays?
DJ Disco Wiz: It a very sad situation…same shit different time…

Has the situation changed?
No!! Not at all. That is why I want everyone who has ever felt defeated to read my book, especially the »young me«. »Use my life« as food for thought of what one person can overcome, i.e. drugs, prison, domestic violence, guns, addiction, gangs and finally something no one has control over: illness. Streets are streets, survival is survival, It’s a generational plaque with no end in site. We are still fighting the same wars in our hood: Drugs then, drugs now.

There is much discussion about Gangsta Rap’s roughness as well as all the Bling Bling hedonism. You are someone who really lived, experienced and – most importantly – survived this way of living. How do you see all those Gangsta rappers who try to make a proud-to-be-of legend of this rather gutter experience?
I don’t regret anything…I wouldn’t be the person I am today, if I had not gone through what I went through. My message is simple and timeless: Let go of the “phantom ideologies” that will get you killed or locked up for a very long time….

Also, MCs often like to explain their Gangstaism and their misbehaves on the street as being a victim of the social (dis)order – therefore not being accountable or guilty for what they do or have done, because they were forced to do it or they did not have another chance. What do you think about this line of argumentation?
It really puts a lot in perspective. You really kind of appreciate each day. It’s a new beginning. I’m completely blessed to be where I’m at right now. A lot of people didn’t even survive that road growing up in those circumstances and growing up with those obstacles. I’ve just been blessed. I guess…angels came into my life and blessed me at certain times and told me to go down a different path.
This is not something I initially set out to do. I’ve been involved with writing so many books throughout the years that my initial response was that I want to write a book about hip hop. I knew hip hop from my perspective and I know it was a transcending genre of a movement that crossed all boundaries of a movement and was universal. I wanted to talk about that and the Latin impact of generations upon generations of youth, no matter what their social status may be, you know? When I got together with Ivan Sanchez two-and-a-half years ago he shot me his book and I was kind of astounded, man. I read it. I read it in like a few days and was just blown back. This is a recurring story line. I remember back in the 70s, I remember reading Piri Thomas’s Down These Mean Streets and all those books that talked about urban youth coming up in all those obstacles. And here we are in a new millennium and here’s this guy who’s 13 years younger than me who grew up in the Bronx, and he had to endure all the same pitfalls and obstacles that myself and millions upon millions of other youth have gone through. And you’re like, wow, this shit never ends. It’s just this same, repetitive, vicious cycle. Then we got to talking about my book and he was the one who was interested in telling my story. I didn’t really know what my story was. I wasn’t at that place where I was comfortable with myself, where I could open up all those doors that hadn’t been opened for decades. Everything you read in that book I’d never told anybody. So it’s not like I went around like an open book to anybody. Not even my closest friends or not even my wife of fourteen years knew any of those things. So it was a very therapeutic process for me. It was very freeing and very relieving. And I can say that even now in my late 40s I’m a better person for it.

In Rap culture there has always been a pride of having been to jail (»Straight from the penitentiary«, as Ice Cube once boasted). Have you ever felt any pride or masculinity on the fact that you shot somebody and that you went to jail for 4.5 years?
There is absolutely NO GLORY in shooting anyone and spending the rest of your life behind bars…

Are there still moments or areas where you go strapped?
No! Never!! I have not carried a gun since 1995. Nowaday I am armed with only wisdom, jewels and Mind rocks!!!

DJ Disco Wiz (links) und Solie, 1984

To come back to your book, there are a few photos of you and the Burnside Avenue Crew as well as your HipHop days back in the 1980s. Though you hardly mention those days in the text. How did you experience HipHop after you came out of jail?
Sure!! I guess if I had not spent 20 years out of hip hop, the book might have had more stories about it, But who’s to say had I stayed in hip hop I would have ever accomplished as much as I have today.

Tell me a bit about the way Latinos are generally considered in the HipHop culture and history?
For me, back in the days, I guess my level of street credibility helped me break a lot of those stereotypes and boundaries. But we’re in a different place now, man. Hip hop is in a different place now, We’re in a global movement and I see those divisions there. And I really can’t pinpoint why our contributions aren’t as noticed as being substantial. For others, it was always a Black and Brown thing. So I don’t know how those divisions started to form. I never looked at it that way. The Latino presence, contribution and signature stamp is undeniable in the 35 year span of Hip Hop culture. In the early 70s New York Puerto Ricans were definitely very involved, As Graffiti writers and B-Boys, but it became a very deferent and complex situation once it came down to becoming a DJ. But I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that when I was doing it back in the days, it was definitely a new thing. We really didn’t know what we were doing, first of all. We were just a bunch of poor Spanish and black teenagers in the Bronx living in one of the most tumultuous times in New York’s history. It was so crazy. Only inspired by what we were creating at the moment. We didn’t have the opportunity to look outside the box because we were too busy keeping ourselves occupied trying to avoid the repetitive, vicious cycle of a prison cell or cemetery.

How did the history of HipHop got that distorted?
The true problem is that our history has never been properly documented. Our contributions to Hip Hop have definitely not been as noted as they should have been. So writing this book now serves multiple purposes. I think one of those purposes is to show the Latino influences from its first inception. To show the impact and educate people about the history of where it all really happened, and that should be generational and relevant to any Latino Hip Hop artist today who has followed in those footsteps.

Over the last years you evolved from a man of turntables to a man of the mic as well. Was there anything you could transfer from your DJ experiences to the Spoken Word performance? Do you see any similarities?
Yes!! I am Advice? I would tell that kid to believe in himself no matter what his circumstances are, because no one believed in me as a child. They never told me that I would ever accomplish anything. Needless to say that I would be a part of an incredible global movement like hip hop, a top chef at some of the finest eating establishments in the world and an author of a book I believe and hope will change many lives is something no one saw coming. I believe now that a man is made by what he accomplishes against all adversities and all the odds. And what he eventually leaves behind for future generation to learn from and the lives that he touches along the way.

:: »It’s Just Begun« von DJ Disco Wiz erscheint in der Miss Rosen Edition bei powerHouse Books, New York 2009, 182 S., € 22,95
:: DJ Disco Wiz @ powerHouse Books

Veröffentlicht am 08.09.2009 um 11:22 unter Worte.
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