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Speaker 1: Imagine this. Nineteen seventy nine, this goes all the rage. Jimmy Carter is President of the United States. The Seattle SuperSonics win their first and only NBA championship. Nineteen seventy nine is also the year that an up and coming DJ debuts on the New York City airwaves. Little did he know that this will be the birth of hip hop's first radio show. And who is a DJ? We have to thank for playing hip hop on the airwaves for the first time. To your super listeners, how you doing tonight? Are your fly guys and fly girls? Welcome once again to the world famous Mister Magic, a rapp attacking. Of course, I am Sir Jes Juice. His name is none other than mister Magic. Mister Magic was a visionary in every sense of the word. His voice was silky smooth, His vocal catus was as written as the rappers he broadcasted. We're talking about a time when the very first rap songs were being recorded. There were no streaming services, there was no MTV. Radio was the number one way for an artist to get heard by the masses. Hip Hop wasn't supposed to make it this far, and neither was mister Magic. Welcome to this episode of Amplify Color. I'm your host, Ryan Cameron, and with each episode of Amplify Color, We're going to go through the history of black radio and hear the stories of trailblazers who made a lasting impact on the medium that we love today. I've been an on air personality in Atlanta, Georgia for over three decades. Pioneers like the ones you're going to learn about in this series inspired me to get into radio, and just maybe they'll inspire a new generation to do the same. With all that said, it's time to get into the story of mister Magic. Hip Hop, since its conception, has been contrarian. Hip hop was never supposed to be in the room. Early practitioners of the craft didn't want to be in the view. Operating on the fringes was a large part of the appeal. Hip Hop was the most anti establishment form of expressionary art that existed when it was introduced to media outlets in the late seventies and early eighties. Clever wordplay, metaphors, and analogies have always been the bread and butter of hip hop, but rappers have never missed words with regard to their feelings towards the establishment. Commercial radio, on their the hand, was the establishment, and commercial stations had no reason to spend hip hop records because there was little demand for it. Hip Hop was underground, it was unknown. Listeners weren't going to tune in to hear music that was unknown to them, and if they weren't tuning in, that meant they definitely weren't buying the products that the radio station's sponsors were trying to sell. Thus, no hip hop on the radio. John mister Magic Reeves peaked the potential of the budding chenre. He was parguably the first person in radio to see the commercial value of hip hop. When Mister Magic started sneaking hip hop records on air, he had been established as an on a personality for a few years. This was quite the accomplishment for a Black American male in his early twenties. It meant he had paid his dues. Super Rocket Mister Magic was the aka call me Sir Juice. I will be a host for the next for Alice. I'm gonna start things off tonight with thing forty five minute continuous music super set. Get the boxes ready. In the meantime, in between times, you could give me a shout out in vibe line. You know my numbers none, five, five trouble ubls, don't forget you down too, and two first ships you'd be calling from outside of the Five boroughs. Mister Magic, saw'll lame with this hip hop thing. The station he worked at, WBLS with a disco station. Disco was party music, cakehorn sections, prominent base, catchy melodies, straight ahead syncopated rhythms presented in repeating patterns. Here's New York City DJ Von Harper introducing cool in the Gang's celebration, a classic example of the late disco era T twenty six. It was celebrating, it was cooling the gang in the Elita Holloway And my name is Von HARPERN and we welcome you to the best radio station in New York City. And like hip hop, disco was a one time underground music. But once disco went from the underground to an overblown, overplayed phenomenon, it created two massive holes. The underground scene was searching for the next thing that would speak to them, something that wasn't prepackaged or over produced, and record execs were searching for the next fat they could monetize disco became musical fodder for DJs and groups who were about to start the next important underground music movement. That new movement, and that new music was hip hop. But hip hop was happening long before disco even became a national sensation. In the early to mid seventies, DJs at New York parties were already dropping isolated drum beats and selected musical punches between songs. These tracks were typically plucked right from funk and disco records. They served as a transitions aka the breaks MC's got involved the mic passed from person to person, each bringing a Union style of delivery to the record that was spinning. Disco and funk tracks let themselves perfectly to the format, upbeat, high energy tunes that were hype enough to keep the party moving and had enough of a groove to offer lyrical riffing and freestyling. The concept, which was already popular, began to fill in the gaps that the rilling genre of disco left in the underground scene, and it was undeniably infectious. That's where mister Magic came in. Mister Magic watched hip hop quickly evolved from breaks of parties to produce tracks pressed on wax. He saw the way that it moved everyone who heard it, and he knew that the music could have the same impact on the radio as it had on the streets, and by nineteen eighty, songs like Curtis Blows The Brakes were beginning to creep into the charts that were previously dominated by disco. The Brakes was Curtis Blow's biggest hit, selling six hundred and eighty thousand copies last year and hitting the top with the Rhythm and Blues sales charts. The trick was to blend top forty pop and disco hits with hip hop records using top forty samples. He needed an actual hip hop party DJ for the concept to hit his fullest potential, so, like many pioneers before him, Mister Magic was forced to forego asking permission. He brought on a DJ he'd heard around the hip hop party circuit, Marlon DJ Marley Marl Williams was still a teenager when mister Magic approached him with the opportunity. Marley Marl knew that this was probably the opportunity of a lifetime, but he was skeptical. Mister Magic trusted a part of a hip hop guy, but he was known as a disco jockey. To a naive teenage hip hop DJ from Queens, the dichotomy of mister Magic's public and private persona read as inauthentic, but if you listen to him for thirty seconds, you understood there was nothing inauthentic about mister Magic at all. He just had his own style. Plus, this was a pay president leaving you have seventy one degrees in the Big Town. About that time for my engineer, all Star Marty Marlin put on the golden mixing gloves, Big Fun of the Big Town, claring the lines two one two nine five w b ls. That is the number as we take your calls and dedications. Thankfully, Marley Marl understood that passing up on any radio gig as a music industry professional, especially as a DJ, would be silly. The teenage DJ made an immediate impact NOD which super Fuck with mister Matson DJ Mally ma state of one seven point five w b ls. Marley Marl's age, coupled with his acumen as a sound engineer, firmly lands in the category of prodigy. She was a type of guy who took apart every electronic device he worked with in order to gain a more fundamental understanding of how it worked. As this tradition, program directors at WBLS balked at the idea of having an unknown, underaged, underground DJ an live at their station. They pressured mister Magic to fire Marley Mal on numerous occasions. Even with the threat of being taken off the air, Mister Magic stood by his concept and more importantly, by his DJ. There was no denying the appeal of mister Magic and DJ Marley Mal live on the air. Turn the boxes up, his big fundament. Don't go away, y'all, turn them up. Get ready for the heighest apples. This is the station with Zeus. It's one O seven point five s Oh my god, I think I'm having a rapids. The rap Attack, as the show was called, made history as the first radio program to play hip hop records in regular rotation. Who knows how long it might have taken for the public to be introduced to hip hop music had mister Magic done what he was told. What's Beef Beef was a rocket fuel that shot hip hop into outer space, But it didn't start with hip hop. Whether it was Prince Buster, and Derek Morgan feuding in reggae songs, James Brown and Joe Text battling over R and B tunes, or Paul McCartney and John Lennon airing their dirty laundry in a post Beatles world. The distrack existed long before hip hop, but there was never a more perfect format for dis tracks than hip hop. Let's set the scene. DJ starts tossing out breaks at a party and there's a hot mic right near the booth, just waiting to be grabbed. Some EMC is in the crowd, and you know he's got something to say. You might think it's about a girl or someone being disrespectful, but mostly it was about making sure people knew who had the best flow on the mic, who was the one with the real skills. The rival again facing off at hip hop shows the settle neighborhood debates of who was a better lyricist. It was known as battle rap. Battle rap was and remains essentially a cut down contest where contestants rhyme their insults over a beef. It's verbal blood sport, as you can easily hear in this famous nineteen eighty one battle between Busy B and Kumo D one two one two, Going to do now, put up on busy b I don't mean to be both would put that ponted and pop bullshit on. We're gonna get right down to the I'm gonna tell you a little sub wraduation. Can you need an empty top? That shoot up hug don't even meet your name from the bluff pugas they ain't miss I'm going it was money man, You've been kind of fit. The results and impact were instantly apparent. You could hear the crowd react to your lines, and you could see your opponent's face. But eventually those battles would make it onto wax too. As hip hop evolved from exclusively live content to recorded content, battle evolved with it. Disc records became the wave. These were songs dedicated entirely to shitting on a pier. Sometimes the insults were cryptic, oftentimes they were not. Disc records are fundamental to the success of hip hop because when you bought a diss record and then figured out who the MC was dissing, chances are you then sought out the other rappers records as well. People love conflict. Economically, rap beefs were almost always mutually beneficial for all parties involved. Competition highlights excellence. It would be impossible to appreciate Michael Jordan's greatness if he only played basketball by himself. As hip hop grew from a budding genre to commercial industry, it was competition that powered the movement. But MC's weren't the only ones being drawn into beefs. Before long, mister Magic found himself in the middle of the drama. Cue The Rap Attack. Welcome once again to the world Famous Mister Magic Attack was a hip hop show to its core. The motivation for Mister Magic hiring Marley Maul as a mixing engineer was to establish a different sonic experience that desired to sound different, meant just like everyone else in the hip hop world, Mister Magic had some competition. The Rap Attack wasn't the only show in town experimenting with spinning hip hop records. Cool DJ Read Alert started off as a lister of Mister Magic when Mister Magic was still paying for airtime. From the very beginning of the hip hop movement, Red Alert was a serious player in the scene. He was a party DJ, so he had some star power. DJ's in the early eighties were more often than not the main attraction at hip hop shows and parties. DJ red Alert was approached by ninety eight to seven Kiss FM in nineteen eighty three to be their new hip hop personality. Kiss had tried and failed on two prior occasions to find a worthy adversary for Mister Magic. The station needed a competitor to go toe to toe with mister Magic over at WBLS. The gig was unpaid to start, but Red Alert knew he would not be able to master the type of exposure Kiss FM offered. He opted to take the job. When he proved to be a worthy adversary of mister Magic, KISSFM started paying and cool DJ red Alert never looked back. Alert gad Alert Alert Alert. Listen, You're in the midst of a red Alert blitz. Talk about smack and investors snapping out of that On ninety eight point seven Kiss with the volume nine Kiss Alert is really cutting up today sounds really Red Alert really gave Mister Magic and the Rap Attack a run for their money. They were the only two hip hop shows in town, so behind the curtain of professional competition, there was a mutual respect for what each of them had accomplished and strived for. Everyone involved had a vested interest in hip hop success. But around nineteen eighty five, the professional competition between mister Magic and Red Alert turned into a major beef. The spark was a good old fashioned hip hop moment. Mister Magic and Marley mal assembled a collective called the Jews Crew. One of the MC's in the Jewe Crew, mc shan made a track with Marley Maul called The Bridge. It was an homage to their neighborhood, Queen's Bridge. An upstart MC named karas One who was tight with DJ Red Alert. Mister Magic's competition took exception to a song held in Queensbridge as the cradle of hip hop instead of his home turf the Bronx, the same place that mister Magic hailed from to pour salt on the wound. Cars One had approached mister Magic at the studio with a new twelve in single by his group, Boogie Down Productions, and was turned away. KRS one was livid. We leave frustrated Magic just us. He wouldn't even give us the time, He wouldn't even who think he is now. Somewhere along the line we get the impression that mister Magic said our tape was Wow, he's heard it and said it was garbage. I said, Golfish DC shared is garbish. Car rs one channeled his frustration into music. In response to the Bridge, his group Boogie Down Productions released the track South Bronx. It spun the pov of the mc shann and Marley mal track from Queensbridge over to the Bronx, and frankly was unkind to anyone associated with the Juice Crew. The lyrics even referenced a whack mc and crackhead DJ. You didn't have to be clairvoyant to know who KRS one was talking about. South Bronx was a leadoff single from Boogie Down Production's nineteen eighty six debut album, Criminally Minded. It defined what would later be known as the Bridge was a back and forth battle between Queensbridge and The Bronx, between the crews of Mister Magic and KRS one, not just for bragging rights, but for respect. The battle happened on wax and over the airwaves. The Jews crew responded to the South Bronx single with an emcy Shan track called Kill That Noise, to which carry Us won, and Boogie Down Productions fired back with the bridges Over, which features some choice dishes. Lobb directly at mister Magic, and mister Magic didn't hold back when it came time to speak his mind about carr Us One's crew on the air be LS one O seven point five in the class by itself, often imitated, but never quite duplicated. This is the original Juice Crew, which covers the entire metro New York area. Because I am, of course from the boogie down Granach and his sir hers crew who are where are they? Frump cast and Novah's don't know him? Sounds like a glove Uh yeah, sounds like saft rat goo home boy. We will battle you anytime, any play anywhere if you did. Meanwhile, we continue the best music in town right here. We are a state of cresh wbls. But just like how distracts people, record sells for both the district and the disc, the feud between the crews simply created more demand for the music and the culture. Didn't matter how many times mister Magic was dissed on the track. Listeners cleared their calendars. They tuned in to hear the hottest new records and the dopest them seaves. But they also tuned in to hear the beef, the drama, it was all part of the experience. On one end of the dial, cool DJ read alert mixing like his life depended on it. On the other end, Mally Mal doing the same. When the beef was squashed and the dust settle and all parties were cool, mister Magick retained the glory of an undisputed king of a burgeoning hip hop scene. It all happened on his watch. Mister Magic was the scene's biggest champion. Hip hop fans in the nineteen eighties sot out mister Magic on the dial, not just for the records He's fun. They tuned in to listen to mister Magic's voice. His voice seemed to be a supernatural gifts well seven point five in the class by itself. Good evening, Say your super listeners, how you doing tonight? All your flag guys and flowgirls, Welcome once again to the world famous mister Magic, a rap attack on your radio. He had a very rich sound about him, rich in flavored and body. He was sonically just very pleasant to listen to. He also literally sounded rich, like he came from money. He had one of those old school very distinguished New York accents. Every word he said it was clearly enunciated with perfect diction. And of course, I am sir Jews, your host for the next three hours as we kick off thirty minutes of non stop music, turn the boxes up. Its big one of the big sass. His voice, coupled with great cadence, made mister Magic an icon of his era. He had that quintessential radio DJ cadence. He sounded like he knew what he was talking about. Mister Magic cut his teeth as an on air personality during an era when program directors only wanted trained, unflappable voices on live radio, so its on air persona could be most actively described as polished. Mister Magic had to overcome significant adversity in his journey of achieving everything he would go on to accomplish. Given his ethnicity and socioeconomic background, the odds of success weren't exactly in his favor. He was born John Reeves in the Bronx on March fifteenth, nineteen fifty six. Being in New York City native had its advantages, but living in the Bronx made those advantages just a little bit more different, dificult to access. When we have status, now we sell it out among ourselves, man, because like wow, we got to live in this district. The whites don't come down here, man and live in the fucked up houses, man. The whitey don't come down here, man, And I'm gonna fucked up fucking no heat in the fucking winter time. You understand, We through Jack. So therefore, like wow, we got to make it a better place to live, you understand. The nineteen seventies marked an era of American history when crime was at his absolute worst, and New York City was one of the most dangerous cities on the planet. Entire city blocks where businesses and residences once stood, were reduced to piles of rubble. Mister Magic was a teenager and a young adult throughout the nineteen seventies. He was a self proclaimed goodlum as a youth, but he's never given details on what he meant. New York in the nineteen sixties and seventies was a tough city to live in, Sanitation strikes, trash in the streets, mounting social and civil unrest. The FBI had an open file on Mayor John Lindsay. Drugs were a problem, Prostitution was a problem. Crime in general was a problem. This was the era of the French Connection, a time when Frank Cervico called out the NYPD for corruption and the peak of the Lucez crime family, you know, the dudes from Goodfellas and John Reeves aka Mister Magic was right in the middle of it. But there was also positivity if you looked in the right place. Mister Magic witnessed the birth of hip hop as it went down in the Bronx. He lived in the middle of what inspired the movement, so he had a connection to the message hip hop was trying to convey to his listeners. It was a way to comment on everyday life in a way that made sense, that was real, that wasn't being force fed by newspapers and TV anchors. Hip hop spoke directly to mister Magic, so, just like many enfranchised inner city youth, mister Magic had to be a part of this movement. He found work selling audio equipment at a speaker store and used the proceeds to pay for airtime at a local radio station. The speaker store noticed that mister Magic was starting to get a little buzz with a show. It wasn't quite commercial radio, but he was the only man in town spinning hip hop records. Mister Magic impressed his employers so much that the Speaker Store decided to sponsor his show. That meant, while he was still broadcasting from a pay to play radio station, the Speaker Store was paying the station dues. Even though he wasn't getting paid, he had a corporate sponsorship to support his show. It wasn't a full taste of success, but it was definitely a strong whiff. His name and a voice carried a little bit more weight to it than it had before, and he had a little more money in his pocket, but he was still scrapping. In the late seventies and early eighties, there weren't any all wrap stations in a US United States. If you wanted to hear hip hop on the radio, you had to seek out the specific shows that were playing it. Mister Magic wanted to make that easier. He grinded for a few years on public access radio, funding a show with paid advertisements and building his following. Then his big break came. It all really started in the spring of nineteen eighty two, first on Saturday nights from nine to midnight with a rap attack on WBLS that helped mister Magic reach an even wider set of fans, and he caught their attention immediately. Listeners waited eagerly for the show, for the chance to hear something new, their cassettes already in the tape deck to hit record as mister Magic kicked out that night's jams. Mister Magic set the bar. He introduced an entire generation to music they might have never heard otherwise, and was one of the ogs of hip hop radio. He helped young artists like Vigdi, Daddie Kane, and Bizmarquis kickstart their careers. He's been shouted out by the heaviest hitters in the history of the game, Nas jay Z, Tupac, Biggie and ll cool J. But this is ll COOJ right now, Sidia listening to one oh seven point five WBLS Mister Magic's rap attack on my radio radio. And even when WBLS wanted to can the rap format, which was seen in the eighties by some as just a fad, mister Magic stuck to his passion. If I stopped playing, he once said, rap will die. He chose to leave the station instead of hosting a show with different music. He soon returned when WBLS realized their folly, and continued to host a Rap Attack until his final show in nineteen eighty nine. And though it was the end of the road for his groundbreaking show, Mister Magic kept rocking the airways, first at w EBB in Baltimore and then at WQHT or Hot ninety seven in New York City. It was on Mister Magic's Hot Nty Si Evans Show, the Classic Showcase, that he hooked up with another young DJ named Mister C. Mister C was already known to some listeners as Big Daddy Knees DJ, but he made history in nineteen ninety four as one of the executive producers of the Notorious Vig's debut album, Ready to Die. That was the album that featured the track Juicy, where Biggie shouted out Mister Magic's Rap Attack, a full circle moment. When Mister Magic retired in two thousand and two after twenty three years in radio, he made one final appearance off the air as the voice of the DJ on the Wild Style Pirate radio station. In the Grand Theft Auto Vice City video game, Mister Magic witnessed a complete evolution of a genre from its origins in radio, where some were skeptical of its staying power, all the way to it being included and celebrated in games played by millions worldwide. On October two, two thousand and nine, John mister Magic Reeves passed away from a massive heart attack. He was only fifty three years old. The news of his passing rocked the hip hop community. He had been a living legend to that point. He was a man who saw literally everything that ever happened in hip hop. He was a treasure trove of culture, and he was gone entirely too soon. What is the legacy of hip hop when it comes to musical genres, It's a little engine that could, the underdog genre created by the underdogs of society. A sonic style that gave a voice to the voiceless by simply using their voices. The new sound of the eighties. Suddenly you hear it everywhere. Rep music. It's all beat and all dark. It tells you a story, makes you want it. Asks we must give credit where credit is due. Unlike many of the radio legends were covering on the series, Mister Magic has yet to be inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame. I repeat the man who introduced hip hop to the airwaves, created the very first rap radio show, and helped to launch the careers of some of rap's early pioneers. Isn't currently enshrined amongst the legends of radio. The elitist powers that be may not be ready to give him as flowers, but the community of hip hop know exactly what he meant to the culture. He is forever immortalized one of the most iconic hip hop songs of all time, The Notorious Bigs Juicy Every Saturday Cyclist In nineteen ninety three, the Notorious Viig was one of the rising stars in rap, a Brooklyn born rapper who had the streets talking way before he had a record deal. He had a glimpse of promise, being featured in The Source magazine's Unsigned Hype, and his debut song Parady in Bullshit was guarndering some attention among tip hop heads. Yet he hadn't had a breakout single, a song that would reach the masses and bring him national attention. Then Juicy dropped and all that changed. The song captures the essence of hip hop. A sample from M two May's nineteen eighty three hit Juicy Fruit is loop to perfection. The chorus had been reworked from the original to fit the content of Biggie's lyrics. The song has an infectious groove, and we all know how it starts. It started the way it did for thousands upon thousands of kids in New York City, looking at their posters on their walls and in magazines of who they wanted to be inspired by the music that was spilling out of their radio. The immaculate beats and rhyme's handpicked by Mister Magic and DJ Marlot Maul, the ones that would influence a generation to pick up a mic and make their voices heard, to not only plot their own course in life, but to actually believe their dreams could be fulfilled. It didn't matter what the radio industry thought. Mister Magic knew how important the music he was playing was. It's kind of like Biggie said, they never thought hip hop would take it this far, but mister Magic knew hip hop was headed to the moon, And fifty plus years later, it's clear that belief has been more than validated. Today, hip hop is the biggest musical genre in the world. It is everywhere. Our culture is steeped in it problems to mister Magic for spreading the word, for creating the community, a community where if you come up, you bring others with you. You'd never walk through the door alone. Mister Magic took Barley mal along for the ride, and that duo took the rest of us to where we are today, to a world where hip hop has heard on the radio, not just from coast to coast, but around the world. But mister Magic couldn't do it alone. There were others, including two of the most surprising contributors to Black Radio, a Jewish and perto Rican duo who turned the college radio station into a hip hop safe haven. That's next time on Amplified Color. Amplified Color is that Interval presents original production from Double Illness. From Interval presents much love to executive producers Alan Coy and Jake Kleinberg. This episode was produced by Corey Cambridge, written by Paras Flanagan and Ted Omo. Mixing and sound designed by Matt Ta Hainey and Spencer Graala. Theme music by the Cafeteria Line, Additional music by Epidemic Sound. Special thanks to Operation Lead Sarah U, Business Development Lead Cheffy Ellen Swag and Marketing lead Samara Steele. Make sure to follow Amplify Color and listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Imagine this. Nineteen seventy nine, this goes all the rage. Jimmy Carter is President of the United States. The Seattle SuperSonics win their first and only NBA championship. Nineteen seventy nine is also the year that an up and coming DJ debuts on the New York City airwaves. Little did he know that this will be the birth of hip hop's first radio show. And who is a DJ? We have to thank for playing hip hop on the airwaves for the first time. To your super listeners, how you doing tonight? Are your fly guys and fly girls? Welcome once again to the world famous Mister Magic, a rapp attacking. Of course, I am Sir Jes Juice. His name is none other than mister Magic. Mister Magic was a visionary in every sense of the word. His voice was silky smooth, His vocal catus was as written as the rappers he broadcasted. We're talking about a time when the very first rap songs were being recorded. There were no streaming services, there was no MTV. Radio was the number one way for an artist to get heard by the masses. Hip Hop wasn't supposed to make it this far, and neither was mister Magic. Welcome to this episode of Amplify Color. I'm your host, Ryan Cameron, and with each episode of Amplify Color, We're going to go through the history of black radio and hear the stories of trailblazers who made a lasting impact on the medium that we love today. I've been an on air personality in Atlanta, Georgia for over three decades. Pioneers like the ones you're going to learn about in this series inspired me to get into radio, and just maybe they'll inspire a new generation to do the same. With all that said, it's time to get into the story of mister Magic. Hip Hop, since its conception, has been contrarian. Hip hop was never supposed to be in the room. Early practitioners of the craft didn't want to be in the view. Operating on the fringes was a large part of the appeal. Hip Hop was the most anti establishment form of expressionary art that existed when it was introduced to media outlets in the late seventies and early eighties. Clever wordplay, metaphors, and analogies have always been the bread and butter of hip hop, but rappers have never missed words with regard to their feelings towards the establishment. Commercial radio, on their the hand, was the establishment, and commercial stations had no reason to spend hip hop records because there was little demand for it. Hip Hop was underground, it was unknown. Listeners weren't going to tune in to hear music that was unknown to them, and if they weren't tuning in, that meant they definitely weren't buying the products that the radio station's sponsors were trying to sell. Thus, no hip hop on the radio. John mister Magic Reeves peaked the potential of the budding chenre. He was parguably the first person in radio to see the commercial value of hip hop. When Mister Magic started sneaking hip hop records on air, he had been established as an on a personality for a few years. This was quite the accomplishment for a Black American male in his early twenties. It meant he had paid his dues. Super Rocket Mister Magic was the aka call me Sir Juice. I will be a host for the next for Alice. I'm gonna start things off tonight with thing forty five minute continuous music super set. Get the boxes ready. In the meantime, in between times, you could give me a shout out in vibe line. You know my numbers none, five, five trouble ubls, don't forget you down too, and two first ships you'd be calling from outside of the Five boroughs. Mister Magic, saw'll lame with this hip hop thing. The station he worked at, WBLS with a disco station. Disco was party music, cakehorn sections, prominent base, catchy melodies, straight ahead syncopated rhythms presented in repeating patterns. Here's New York City DJ Von Harper introducing cool in the Gang's celebration, a classic example of the late disco era T twenty six. It was celebrating, it was cooling the gang in the Elita Holloway And my name is Von HARPERN and we welcome you to the best radio station in New York City. And like hip hop, disco was a one time underground music. But once disco went from the underground to an overblown, overplayed phenomenon, it created two massive holes. The underground scene was searching for the next thing that would speak to them, something that wasn't prepackaged or over produced, and record execs were searching for the next fat they could monetize disco became musical fodder for DJs and groups who were about to start the next important underground music movement. That new movement, and that new music was hip hop. But hip hop was happening long before disco even became a national sensation. In the early to mid seventies, DJs at New York parties were already dropping isolated drum beats and selected musical punches between songs. These tracks were typically plucked right from funk and disco records. They served as a transitions aka the breaks MC's got involved the mic passed from person to person, each bringing a Union style of delivery to the record that was spinning. Disco and funk tracks let themselves perfectly to the format, upbeat, high energy tunes that were hype enough to keep the party moving and had enough of a groove to offer lyrical riffing and freestyling. The concept, which was already popular, began to fill in the gaps that the rilling genre of disco left in the underground scene, and it was undeniably infectious. That's where mister Magic came in. Mister Magic watched hip hop quickly evolved from breaks of parties to produce tracks pressed on wax. He saw the way that it moved everyone who heard it, and he knew that the music could have the same impact on the radio as it had on the streets, and by nineteen eighty, songs like Curtis Blows The Brakes were beginning to creep into the charts that were previously dominated by disco. The Brakes was Curtis Blow's biggest hit, selling six hundred and eighty thousand copies last year and hitting the top with the Rhythm and Blues sales charts. The trick was to blend top forty pop and disco hits with hip hop records using top forty samples. He needed an actual hip hop party DJ for the concept to hit his fullest potential, so, like many pioneers before him, Mister Magic was forced to forego asking permission. He brought on a DJ he'd heard around the hip hop party circuit, Marlon DJ Marley Marl Williams was still a teenager when mister Magic approached him with the opportunity. Marley Marl knew that this was probably the opportunity of a lifetime, but he was skeptical. Mister Magic trusted a part of a hip hop guy, but he was known as a disco jockey. To a naive teenage hip hop DJ from Queens, the dichotomy of mister Magic's public and private persona read as inauthentic, but if you listen to him for thirty seconds, you understood there was nothing inauthentic about mister Magic at all. He just had his own style. Plus, this was a pay president leaving you have seventy one degrees in the Big Town. About that time for my engineer, all Star Marty Marlin put on the golden mixing gloves, Big Fun of the Big Town, claring the lines two one two nine five w b ls. That is the number as we take your calls and dedications. Thankfully, Marley Marl understood that passing up on any radio gig as a music industry professional, especially as a DJ, would be silly. The teenage DJ made an immediate impact NOD which super Fuck with mister Matson DJ Mally ma state of one seven point five w b ls. Marley Marl's age, coupled with his acumen as a sound engineer, firmly lands in the category of prodigy. She was a type of guy who took apart every electronic device he worked with in order to gain a more fundamental understanding of how it worked. As this tradition, program directors at WBLS balked at the idea of having an unknown, underaged, underground DJ an live at their station. They pressured mister Magic to fire Marley Mal on numerous occasions. Even with the threat of being taken off the air, Mister Magic stood by his concept and more importantly, by his DJ. There was no denying the appeal of mister Magic and DJ Marley Mal live on the air. Turn the boxes up, his big fundament. Don't go away, y'all, turn them up. Get ready for the heighest apples. This is the station with Zeus. It's one O seven point five s Oh my god, I think I'm having a rapids. The rap Attack, as the show was called, made history as the first radio program to play hip hop records in regular rotation. Who knows how long it might have taken for the public to be introduced to hip hop music had mister Magic done what he was told. What's Beef Beef was a rocket fuel that shot hip hop into outer space, But it didn't start with hip hop. Whether it was Prince Buster, and Derek Morgan feuding in reggae songs, James Brown and Joe Text battling over R and B tunes, or Paul McCartney and John Lennon airing their dirty laundry in a post Beatles world. The distrack existed long before hip hop, but there was never a more perfect format for dis tracks than hip hop. Let's set the scene. DJ starts tossing out breaks at a party and there's a hot mic right near the booth, just waiting to be grabbed. Some EMC is in the crowd, and you know he's got something to say. You might think it's about a girl or someone being disrespectful, but mostly it was about making sure people knew who had the best flow on the mic, who was the one with the real skills. The rival again facing off at hip hop shows the settle neighborhood debates of who was a better lyricist. It was known as battle rap. Battle rap was and remains essentially a cut down contest where contestants rhyme their insults over a beef. It's verbal blood sport, as you can easily hear in this famous nineteen eighty one battle between Busy B and Kumo D one two one two, Going to do now, put up on busy b I don't mean to be both would put that ponted and pop bullshit on. We're gonna get right down to the I'm gonna tell you a little sub wraduation. Can you need an empty top? That shoot up hug don't even meet your name from the bluff pugas they ain't miss I'm going it was money man, You've been kind of fit. The results and impact were instantly apparent. You could hear the crowd react to your lines, and you could see your opponent's face. But eventually those battles would make it onto wax too. As hip hop evolved from exclusively live content to recorded content, battle evolved with it. Disc records became the wave. These were songs dedicated entirely to shitting on a pier. Sometimes the insults were cryptic, oftentimes they were not. Disc records are fundamental to the success of hip hop because when you bought a diss record and then figured out who the MC was dissing, chances are you then sought out the other rappers records as well. People love conflict. Economically, rap beefs were almost always mutually beneficial for all parties involved. Competition highlights excellence. It would be impossible to appreciate Michael Jordan's greatness if he only played basketball by himself. As hip hop grew from a budding genre to commercial industry, it was competition that powered the movement. But MC's weren't the only ones being drawn into beefs. Before long, mister Magic found himself in the middle of the drama. Cue The Rap Attack. Welcome once again to the world Famous Mister Magic Attack was a hip hop show to its core. The motivation for Mister Magic hiring Marley Maul as a mixing engineer was to establish a different sonic experience that desired to sound different, meant just like everyone else in the hip hop world, Mister Magic had some competition. The Rap Attack wasn't the only show in town experimenting with spinning hip hop records. Cool DJ Read Alert started off as a lister of Mister Magic when Mister Magic was still paying for airtime. From the very beginning of the hip hop movement, Red Alert was a serious player in the scene. He was a party DJ, so he had some star power. DJ's in the early eighties were more often than not the main attraction at hip hop shows and parties. DJ red Alert was approached by ninety eight to seven Kiss FM in nineteen eighty three to be their new hip hop personality. Kiss had tried and failed on two prior occasions to find a worthy adversary for Mister Magic. The station needed a competitor to go toe to toe with mister Magic over at WBLS. The gig was unpaid to start, but Red Alert knew he would not be able to master the type of exposure Kiss FM offered. He opted to take the job. When he proved to be a worthy adversary of mister Magic, KISSFM started paying and cool DJ red Alert never looked back. Alert gad Alert Alert Alert. Listen, You're in the midst of a red Alert blitz. Talk about smack and investors snapping out of that On ninety eight point seven Kiss with the volume nine Kiss Alert is really cutting up today sounds really Red Alert really gave Mister Magic and the Rap Attack a run for their money. They were the only two hip hop shows in town, so behind the curtain of professional competition, there was a mutual respect for what each of them had accomplished and strived for. Everyone involved had a vested interest in hip hop success. But around nineteen eighty five, the professional competition between mister Magic and Red Alert turned into a major beef. The spark was a good old fashioned hip hop moment. Mister Magic and Marley mal assembled a collective called the Jews Crew. One of the MC's in the Jewe Crew, mc shan made a track with Marley Maul called The Bridge. It was an homage to their neighborhood, Queen's Bridge. An upstart MC named karas One who was tight with DJ Red Alert. Mister Magic's competition took exception to a song held in Queensbridge as the cradle of hip hop instead of his home turf the Bronx, the same place that mister Magic hailed from to pour salt on the wound. Cars One had approached mister Magic at the studio with a new twelve in single by his group, Boogie Down Productions, and was turned away. KRS one was livid. We leave frustrated Magic just us. He wouldn't even give us the time, He wouldn't even who think he is now. Somewhere along the line we get the impression that mister Magic said our tape was Wow, he's heard it and said it was garbage. I said, Golfish DC shared is garbish. Car rs one channeled his frustration into music. In response to the Bridge, his group Boogie Down Productions released the track South Bronx. It spun the pov of the mc shann and Marley mal track from Queensbridge over to the Bronx, and frankly was unkind to anyone associated with the Juice Crew. The lyrics even referenced a whack mc and crackhead DJ. You didn't have to be clairvoyant to know who KRS one was talking about. South Bronx was a leadoff single from Boogie Down Production's nineteen eighty six debut album, Criminally Minded. It defined what would later be known as the Bridge was a back and forth battle between Queensbridge and The Bronx, between the crews of Mister Magic and KRS one, not just for bragging rights, but for respect. The battle happened on wax and over the airwaves. The Jews crew responded to the South Bronx single with an emcy Shan track called Kill That Noise, to which carry Us won, and Boogie Down Productions fired back with the bridges Over, which features some choice dishes. Lobb directly at mister Magic, and mister Magic didn't hold back when it came time to speak his mind about carr Us One's crew on the air be LS one O seven point five in the class by itself, often imitated, but never quite duplicated. This is the original Juice Crew, which covers the entire metro New York area. Because I am, of course from the boogie down Granach and his sir hers crew who are where are they? Frump cast and Novah's don't know him? Sounds like a glove Uh yeah, sounds like saft rat goo home boy. We will battle you anytime, any play anywhere if you did. Meanwhile, we continue the best music in town right here. We are a state of cresh wbls. But just like how distracts people, record sells for both the district and the disc, the feud between the crews simply created more demand for the music and the culture. Didn't matter how many times mister Magic was dissed on the track. Listeners cleared their calendars. They tuned in to hear the hottest new records and the dopest them seaves. But they also tuned in to hear the beef, the drama, it was all part of the experience. On one end of the dial, cool DJ read alert mixing like his life depended on it. On the other end, Mally Mal doing the same. When the beef was squashed and the dust settle and all parties were cool, mister Magick retained the glory of an undisputed king of a burgeoning hip hop scene. It all happened on his watch. Mister Magic was the scene's biggest champion. Hip hop fans in the nineteen eighties sot out mister Magic on the dial, not just for the records He's fun. They tuned in to listen to mister Magic's voice. His voice seemed to be a supernatural gifts well seven point five in the class by itself. Good evening, Say your super listeners, how you doing tonight? All your flag guys and flowgirls, Welcome once again to the world famous mister Magic, a rap attack on your radio. He had a very rich sound about him, rich in flavored and body. He was sonically just very pleasant to listen to. He also literally sounded rich, like he came from money. He had one of those old school very distinguished New York accents. Every word he said it was clearly enunciated with perfect diction. And of course, I am sir Jews, your host for the next three hours as we kick off thirty minutes of non stop music, turn the boxes up. Its big one of the big sass. His voice, coupled with great cadence, made mister Magic an icon of his era. He had that quintessential radio DJ cadence. He sounded like he knew what he was talking about. Mister Magic cut his teeth as an on air personality during an era when program directors only wanted trained, unflappable voices on live radio, so its on air persona could be most actively described as polished. Mister Magic had to overcome significant adversity in his journey of achieving everything he would go on to accomplish. Given his ethnicity and socioeconomic background, the odds of success weren't exactly in his favor. He was born John Reeves in the Bronx on March fifteenth, nineteen fifty six. Being in New York City native had its advantages, but living in the Bronx made those advantages just a little bit more different, dificult to access. When we have status, now we sell it out among ourselves, man, because like wow, we got to live in this district. The whites don't come down here, man and live in the fucked up houses, man. The whitey don't come down here, man, And I'm gonna fucked up fucking no heat in the fucking winter time. You understand, We through Jack. So therefore, like wow, we got to make it a better place to live, you understand. The nineteen seventies marked an era of American history when crime was at his absolute worst, and New York City was one of the most dangerous cities on the planet. Entire city blocks where businesses and residences once stood, were reduced to piles of rubble. Mister Magic was a teenager and a young adult throughout the nineteen seventies. He was a self proclaimed goodlum as a youth, but he's never given details on what he meant. New York in the nineteen sixties and seventies was a tough city to live in, Sanitation strikes, trash in the streets, mounting social and civil unrest. The FBI had an open file on Mayor John Lindsay. Drugs were a problem, Prostitution was a problem. Crime in general was a problem. This was the era of the French Connection, a time when Frank Cervico called out the NYPD for corruption and the peak of the Lucez crime family, you know, the dudes from Goodfellas and John Reeves aka Mister Magic was right in the middle of it. But there was also positivity if you looked in the right place. Mister Magic witnessed the birth of hip hop as it went down in the Bronx. He lived in the middle of what inspired the movement, so he had a connection to the message hip hop was trying to convey to his listeners. It was a way to comment on everyday life in a way that made sense, that was real, that wasn't being force fed by newspapers and TV anchors. Hip hop spoke directly to mister Magic, so, just like many enfranchised inner city youth, mister Magic had to be a part of this movement. He found work selling audio equipment at a speaker store and used the proceeds to pay for airtime at a local radio station. The speaker store noticed that mister Magic was starting to get a little buzz with a show. It wasn't quite commercial radio, but he was the only man in town spinning hip hop records. Mister Magic impressed his employers so much that the Speaker Store decided to sponsor his show. That meant, while he was still broadcasting from a pay to play radio station, the Speaker Store was paying the station dues. Even though he wasn't getting paid, he had a corporate sponsorship to support his show. It wasn't a full taste of success, but it was definitely a strong whiff. His name and a voice carried a little bit more weight to it than it had before, and he had a little more money in his pocket, but he was still scrapping. In the late seventies and early eighties, there weren't any all wrap stations in a US United States. If you wanted to hear hip hop on the radio, you had to seek out the specific shows that were playing it. Mister Magic wanted to make that easier. He grinded for a few years on public access radio, funding a show with paid advertisements and building his following. Then his big break came. It all really started in the spring of nineteen eighty two, first on Saturday nights from nine to midnight with a rap attack on WBLS that helped mister Magic reach an even wider set of fans, and he caught their attention immediately. Listeners waited eagerly for the show, for the chance to hear something new, their cassettes already in the tape deck to hit record as mister Magic kicked out that night's jams. Mister Magic set the bar. He introduced an entire generation to music they might have never heard otherwise, and was one of the ogs of hip hop radio. He helped young artists like Vigdi, Daddie Kane, and Bizmarquis kickstart their careers. He's been shouted out by the heaviest hitters in the history of the game, Nas jay Z, Tupac, Biggie and ll cool J. But this is ll COOJ right now, Sidia listening to one oh seven point five WBLS Mister Magic's rap attack on my radio radio. And even when WBLS wanted to can the rap format, which was seen in the eighties by some as just a fad, mister Magic stuck to his passion. If I stopped playing, he once said, rap will die. He chose to leave the station instead of hosting a show with different music. He soon returned when WBLS realized their folly, and continued to host a Rap Attack until his final show in nineteen eighty nine. And though it was the end of the road for his groundbreaking show, Mister Magic kept rocking the airways, first at w EBB in Baltimore and then at WQHT or Hot ninety seven in New York City. It was on Mister Magic's Hot Nty Si Evans Show, the Classic Showcase, that he hooked up with another young DJ named Mister C. Mister C was already known to some listeners as Big Daddy Knees DJ, but he made history in nineteen ninety four as one of the executive producers of the Notorious Vig's debut album, Ready to Die. That was the album that featured the track Juicy, where Biggie shouted out Mister Magic's Rap Attack, a full circle moment. When Mister Magic retired in two thousand and two after twenty three years in radio, he made one final appearance off the air as the voice of the DJ on the Wild Style Pirate radio station. In the Grand Theft Auto Vice City video game, Mister Magic witnessed a complete evolution of a genre from its origins in radio, where some were skeptical of its staying power, all the way to it being included and celebrated in games played by millions worldwide. On October two, two thousand and nine, John mister Magic Reeves passed away from a massive heart attack. He was only fifty three years old. The news of his passing rocked the hip hop community. He had been a living legend to that point. He was a man who saw literally everything that ever happened in hip hop. He was a treasure trove of culture, and he was gone entirely too soon. What is the legacy of hip hop when it comes to musical genres, It's a little engine that could, the underdog genre created by the underdogs of society. A sonic style that gave a voice to the voiceless by simply using their voices. The new sound of the eighties. Suddenly you hear it everywhere. Rep music. It's all beat and all dark. It tells you a story, makes you want it. Asks we must give credit where credit is due. Unlike many of the radio legends were covering on the series, Mister Magic has yet to be inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame. I repeat the man who introduced hip hop to the airwaves, created the very first rap radio show, and helped to launch the careers of some of rap's early pioneers. Isn't currently enshrined amongst the legends of radio. The elitist powers that be may not be ready to give him as flowers, but the community of hip hop know exactly what he meant to the culture. He is forever immortalized one of the most iconic hip hop songs of all time, The Notorious Bigs Juicy Every Saturday Cyclist In nineteen ninety three, the Notorious Viig was one of the rising stars in rap, a Brooklyn born rapper who had the streets talking way before he had a record deal. He had a glimpse of promise, being featured in The Source magazine's Unsigned Hype, and his debut song Parady in Bullshit was guarndering some attention among tip hop heads. Yet he hadn't had a breakout single, a song that would reach the masses and bring him national attention. Then Juicy dropped and all that changed. The song captures the essence of hip hop. A sample from M two May's nineteen eighty three hit Juicy Fruit is loop to perfection. The chorus had been reworked from the original to fit the content of Biggie's lyrics. The song has an infectious groove, and we all know how it starts. It started the way it did for thousands upon thousands of kids in New York City, looking at their posters on their walls and in magazines of who they wanted to be inspired by the music that was spilling out of their radio. The immaculate beats and rhyme's handpicked by Mister Magic and DJ Marlot Maul, the ones that would influence a generation to pick up a mic and make their voices heard, to not only plot their own course in life, but to actually believe their dreams could be fulfilled. It didn't matter what the radio industry thought. Mister Magic knew how important the music he was playing was. It's kind of like Biggie said, they never thought hip hop would take it this far, but mister Magic knew hip hop was headed to the moon, And fifty plus years later, it's clear that belief has been more than validated. Today, hip hop is the biggest musical genre in the world. It is everywhere. Our culture is steeped in it problems to mister Magic for spreading the word, for creating the community, a community where if you come up, you bring others with you. You'd never walk through the door alone. Mister Magic took Barley mal along for the ride, and that duo took the rest of us to where we are today, to a world where hip hop has heard on the radio, not just from coast to coast, but around the world. But mister Magic couldn't do it alone. There were others, including two of the most surprising contributors to Black Radio, a Jewish and perto Rican duo who turned the college radio station into a hip hop safe haven. That's next time on Amplified Color. Amplified Color is that Interval presents original production from Double Illness. From Interval presents much love to executive producers Alan Coy and Jake Kleinberg. This episode was produced by Corey Cambridge, written by Paras Flanagan and Ted Omo. Mixing and sound designed by Matt Ta Hainey and Spencer Graala. Theme music by the Cafeteria Line, Additional music by Epidemic Sound. Special thanks to Operation Lead Sarah U, Business Development Lead Cheffy Ellen Swag and Marketing lead Samara Steele. Make sure to follow Amplify Color and listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.
