Pauly Yams & DJ Jazz
Pauly Yams & DJ Jazz
Genres: rap, hip hop, golden age, east coast rap, rappaz
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The Militant Mind State
About Pauly Yams & DJ Jazz
Jazz's first memories of the culture were from the late 1970's. One of his aunts lived up in North Philly and he remembers going to block parties in a local school playground. Old school cats like Sex Machine and Disco Rat were the original sound system DJ's who rocked block parties with a set of belt- driven decks rigged up from the back of a U-Haul truck. After seeing this spectacle at a few jams he had to cop a pair of decks. He saved up for a while and eventually scored an early pair of Technics tables. After seeing "Wildstyle" in 1983 he, like most cats, was heavily influenced by DST's cuts and copying those fly techniques was his earliest memories of developing his own style. Jazz would often hang out at scratch pioneer Grandmaster Nell's crib in South Philly watching him scratch and at another pioneer's spot, Grand Slam DJ Jam's crib, to get "breaks info". Jazz remembers that Slam had the 45 of "Last Night Saved It All" without the phone ringing and he would watch him double-up the drum break using 45's stuck to busted 12" records. Slam was in a crew called Super Bad Disco along with yet another pioneer Grand Wizard Rasheen. According to Jazz, Rasheen was an unorthodox kind of dude. Technology-wise he was crazy creative. Jazz saw all kinds of hybrid gear round at his yard. Rasheen was (reputedly) the first cat to spin round when doubling up/juggling records and do the "under the leg" move. Cashmoney got that from Rasheen. He also reputedly taught Cash to scratch. Back then Cash was a dancer and into breakin (like Rasheen was before he got into turntablism). Cash came up under Rasheen and went on to be one of the greatest to ever do it. Why am i telling you cats this? Because Philly was/is of vital importance in the evolution of turntablism and the art of DJ'ing and Jazz was at the heart of the scene and was surrounded by all the main players throughout it's most important phase. A key moment for all the up and coming DJ's was a show at Houston Hall in West Philly in the early 80's. Masterdon Commitee had come to town after their early releases on Enjoy Recs and EVERYONE into Hip Hop was at this show but, at this stage, didn't know each other - the scene was localised and if you were from West Philly you might not know someone from South Philly. The DJ was breakin down "Spoonin Rap" on one turntable and this flipped the crowd out, especially all the wanna-be DJ's. At the time kids were gettin tapes through from NYC by Flash and recordings from nights at the Fever, but to see it in person was a different kind of buzz. In 1985, after several years of practising on the decks and playing parties, Jazz got up and won a DJ battle at the Wynne Ballroom which was put on by promoter Bobby Dance. He started gettin into the production side of things as a DJ, scratching on other artists' tracks. He did cuts for an MC called KidFresh and in 1985 with Robbie B, under the name Street Kings dropped a single called "Gettin Fresher" on Hi-Wen records, a label put together by unsung Philly music industry legend, manager and entrepreneur Hiriam Hicks (one time manager of Babyface, Bell Biv Devoe, Dru Hill and the Isley Brothers) and Lady B aka Wendy Clark. Jazz and Robbie B worked on more material together and after dropping a tape of a new track at the notorious Philly night club "After Midnight" got themselves a Philly anthem with their next single "Rock The Go-Go" in 1996 - this time appearing as Jazzy J. They were in talks to be signed by Luke Records, which formed a year earlier, but eventually dropped it with Schoolly D (who, incidentally, Jazz says he taught to use a drum machine) on his own Schoolly-D Records in 1987 after it was originally released the year before locally on R.B.A. Recs. Jazz was spinnin a lot at this point and was doin a lot of block parties. He started to go down to Studio 4, a studio set up by Joe the Butcher and his brother, who set up Ruffhouse Records. Jazz and Robbie dropped one of the first releases on the label, "Heart of South Philly" in 1989 before Columbia bought the label. It was back then that he met Muggs who was in the group 783, pre-Cypress Hill. He produced a few tracks for the band and when Muggs came to town Jazz took him around and showed him (like with Schoolly-D) some drum machine technics and beats.In 89 he produced the Too Brown material on Vibe. In 93, through his connections with Jeff he produced the Remix of "Boom! Shake the Room" and "Code Red" off the album which earned him a Platinum Disc. He toured with different groups all over the world during the early to mid 90's including Bahamadia as her tour DJ. In the mid to late 90s he produced a lot more beats for cats on the "Underground Hip Hop" scene, including Rahsheed (aka Maylay Sparks), Ill Advised, Posse-O, The High and Mighty and another Philly MC Pauly Yams. Jazz had heard about Pauly from a friend who thought the two might work well together. The friend brought Pauly round to Jazz's studio one day and the two had an instant musical rapport. Pauly was studying at the GAMP music college in Philly so Jazz didnt have to teach him about counting bars and timing, like he had to with most MC's. They recorded a few mixtapes together which were distributed locally and off the back of some positive feedback they decided to work on some tracks. When Jazz heard that a friend Terrance Glasgow was looking to invest some money in an independent Hip Hop label he suggested the Yams project. Terrance's uncle owned a gym in Philly so he built onto the side of that building, copped some recording gear and that became Rare Form Entertainment HQ. The When I Blow Up EP was recorded in 1994 and following that Jazz went on to record a bunch of other independent projects.
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