Richard Sisco Has Passed Away (Cold Crush Brothers + More)

Richard Sisco, an important man involved in the early and fundamental days of the hip hop scene, has passed away. As told in Jim Fricke and Charlie Ahearn's amazing book, Yes Yes Y'all, Sisco was "The first MC to perform with Charlie Chase and what would become the Cold Crush Brothers. He produced many flyers for hip hop jams in the late '70s and early '80s and briefly teamed up with Wanda Dee."

If you've seen Beat Street, you've seen Richard Sisco -

I strongly urge anyone interested in the origins of hip hop to check out Yes Yes Y'all if you haven't already. Sisco is one of the many pioneers to share his memories of the scene in the 70s and 80s. I'm glad he had a chance to share some of his memories. Here's two short excerpts -

On the first MC...

"Kool Herc had his MC - Coke La Rock - but if you want to say the first "rhymer," Cowboy definitely was the first guy in the Bronx that put it together. He used to go on like, "A one-two, y'all," and "Yes yes, y'all," all that kind of stuff, and then he'd start to say a little rhyme. That was the first… We said, "That's funky, man, you checking that out?"

On Performing with Charlie Chase...

"Charlie (Chase) started DJ-ing, and being hip to the Black thing, he started playing these records that Kool Herc was playing. That was around '77, '78, when it really started getting pumped. There was a jam over at the Monterey Community Center on Thursday nights. We used to rock it with live DJs - Dizzy Diz, Mighty Mike, DJ Ray, Kool DJ Ron, and a few of the other kids. With Charlie Chase, we said "Yo! We gotta follow him. He's the man to watch."

Here is audio from December 26th, 1980, where Sisco was rocking as a DJ on the bill with the Super Sonic 4 MCs (Ricky Dee, Vicious Cee, Dwayne Dee, Ice Ice and Lil Sha Rock) and Cool Clyde. Listen and download below. Rest in peace to Richard Sisco!

Side A -



Side B -



Download link - http://www.megaupload.com/?d=3973E4NV

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I'm More Feared Than A Sugar Hill Contract ... ?

Can we please, PLEASE get a proper expanded re-release of Beat Street on DVD / Blu Ray?? I, like many other movie watchers, frequent IMDB almost anytime I see a flick. The amount of tidbits in the trivia section for a movie is always a direct correlation of how many bonus materials / extras come with an expanded edition of a given title. How many times have you read the trivia on a movie and then seen a DVD featurette, only to realize all of the interesting facts in the extra were things you already read for free on IMDB? (End nerd-out paragraph here)

Beat Street re-releases have unfortunately never come with any notable bonus material, so there's not much to read on its IMDB page (although my boy Nick Sinista did point out that the dude who played Spit has been a stuntman for over 130 movies, including American Gangster, The Bourne Ultimatum, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Meet Joe Black, 8MM, Meet the Parents, Juice, King of New York, and No Country for Old Men. Crazy). Awhile back I noticed in the trivia section there was a paragraph that read:

About 80% of the footage in the original theatrical trailer is not included in the final cut. Examples include Ramón getting his bag ripped off while walking with Kenny and Charlie, several battle outtakes including the classroom up-rocking scene, Ramón on a set of drums, and one dancer flipping off against a wall at the Burning Spear nightclub. Several other pieces of footage were included as well but were in freeze frame in the opening credits of the film. The trailer also includes an alternate version of title song performed by Kool Moe Dee, (who appears in the film in the "Christmas Rappin'" sequence with the rest of the Treacherous Three), which also did not appear in the movie nor on the original soundtrack albums.

Out of control! A quick youtube search yielded the original theatrical trailer for the movie, and sure enough my mind was blown. An alternate title cut by Kool Moe Dee set to tons of scenes left out of the movie. Check it out below:

This gives new meaning to the term "teaser trailer." It appears that there is a PLETHORA of extra footage from this flick. I know that to the big wigs a movie like this isn't worth assembling an expanded special edition of, but hopefully, down the road, somebody will be in a position of power to swing something like that.

I wonder if that Kool Moe Dee title track had to be replaced by Jazzy Jay's Son of Beat Street because of some Sugar Hill contract issues? Wouldn't surprise me. As Treach (Naughty by Nature, not Treacherous Three) said,

"...I'm more feared than a Sugar Hill Contract..."

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