These cats used rap to set up records like no other. Cheba commanded the audience with voice and a great sense of timing. They put a bow tie on hip-hop at that time to get it through. Cheba and Hollywood simply infiltrated the over-eighteen college adult bracket that simply hated on the art form. “Nowhere does he get his due credit for spreading it from the BX to accessible heads. “Eddie Cheba was as important to hip-hop/rap as Ike Turner was to rock and roll,” Chuck D of Public Enemy later tells me while on tour somewhere in Europe. On this day, Eddie is in an upbeat mood, because Tuff City Records is rereleasing the only recording Eddie ever did, a disco rap workout called “Looking Good (Shake Your Body).” It was originally recorded for Tree Line Records in 1980 and backed by the owners of Club 371.Ĭheba’s raspy-voiced, call-and-response style made a special impact out in Long Island on some college kids that called themselves Spectrum Sound-later known as Public Enemy. Fresh, Kurtis Blow, and Biz Markie are notorious for can be traced back to the smooth style of guys like Lovebug Starski, DJ Hollywood, and Eddie Cheba. The call-and-response style (back then called “house rockin’ ”) that MCs and DJs like Busy Bee, Kid Capri, Doug E. He is credited with creating the old-school rhyme: “It’s on and on and on, on, and on like the hot butter on the what?” And if you were in the club and in the know, you knew to holler back “Popcorn!” “We had a book of ’em,” he tells me in reference to the call-and-response tactics that he and his friend, partner, and sometime rival DJ Hollywood came up with. At hot nightclubbing spots like Small’s Paradise, Charles Gallery, Hotel Diplomat, and Club 371, Cheba would shout into the mic: “Who makes it sweeter?” And the crowd of hundreds would shout back, “Cheba, Cheba, Cheba!” Ladies and gentlemen, meet Eddie Cheba, who, along with Melle Mel, Cowboy, Creole, Coke La Rock, Timmy Tim, and DJ Hollywood, is one of the founding fathers of rap. That was in 1977, when the cost of living was different and so was the cost of the best DJ in New York. “We’d do one hour over here, jump in our cars and head out to Queens or Hempstead, Long Island, and do an hour out there.” “And you’d be happy that you got that hour!” he says to me with the cockiness of a used-car salesman. You know what I’m sayin’? We got $500 for an hour-without a sound system.” All the while, he’s tapping me on the shoulder in between sips of a Heineken. That means you didn’t hear it too far beyond the infamous five boroughs.Īlmost jumping out of his seat, Eddie Cheba says to me, “Most guys, back then, only got $175 or $150 with a sound system to play a gig. Way before the bling era and rappers rubbing shoulders with the likes of Donald Trump and Paris Hilton in the Hamptons, and definitely before multimillion-dollar deals, ring tones, clothing lines, and sneaker endorsements, rap was the music of ghetto Black New York. That is unless you’re up on your hip-hop history. But it’s the stories that this man with droopy eyes and a raspy voice would tell that could make you look at him cross-eyed while sipping your Long Island Iced Tea.
His easygoing personality mixed with his affable charm makes him the kind of guy you’d want to share a drink with and swap stories. It is perhaps the most unlikely place to meet a former ghetto celeb and rap innovator.ĭecked out in white-and-green shorts with a matching jersey is Eddie Cheba, a middle-aged man who many would find likeable.
Overhead, the sound system is playing the dancehall reggae classic “Level the Vibes” by Half Pint. Dozens of families are crowded in several swimming pools trying to beat the heat. The Fishtail Bar in the Bay Watch Resort in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, is right out back overlooking the beach. When the great Kool Herc led the Hevalo pack,Īnd Hollywood and Cheba rocked the Diplomat… Pin Introducing the original crowd rocker Eddie Cheba
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