Mission Impossible: Bringing Hip-Hop to National TV | The Almanac of Rap

Añadido: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]I wanted to know more about how you chose the performers, like Graffiti Rock was your first thing, right? Yeah, it was the pilot.

[00:00:06]>> Yeah. The pilot aired in 88 markets around the country, which is a lot.

[00:00:10]We got pretty good ratings. We did really well. Uh how we picked who we wanted to pick First of all, you have to understand at this time nobody's thinking about hip-hop on national television but me.

[00:00:25]You know, I mean I mean yes at this stage, you know, little magazine shows like Ripley's Believe It or Not had breakers on it, maybe. Or you know, you'd have little moments where elements of hip-hop would be on TV. But a TV show that was devoted to hip-hop culture was unheard of. And hardly anyone that I discussed it with believed it could be possible.

[00:00:47]They were like and even back then, even not that much earlier than that, people found it hard to believe that you could even have a radio show devoted to hip-hop.

[00:00:57]Yeah.

[00:00:57]>> That you could even get hip-hop songs or rap songs on the radio. It was like hard to you you you have to have been there back in those days to believe how much resistance there was to hip-hop culture and how much disbelief in it that there was by the general market. So when when I was going around to get people to be in the show, at the same time I'm working on promoting Beat Street because I was a producer on Beat Street. I was juggling like 18 chainsaws at the same time. It didn't make things easier. [laughter] But you know, I I needed to get I had to get a really inter- integrated audience.

[00:01:39]Even though I my preference probably would have been to have had a majority black and certain percentage, like maybe 75% black and 25 20% Puerto Rican and maybe 5% white crowd that wasn't going to work on national television. There had to be a mix of white kids, black kids, Puerto Rican kids, Asian kids even.

[00:02:01]So, I did that. That was a compromise a little bit.

[00:02:05]But, I made sure that I got people who understood the culture and were from the scene.

[00:02:10]Um uh I was already working with with uh with Special K and and Kool Moe Dee from the Treacherous Three. We were friends working on different projects already.

[00:02:22]So, that was easy to bring them in.

[00:02:25]Uh I had thought about either getting Mr. Magic or Fab 5 Freddy to be the host of the show.

[00:02:33]Uh but, there was so much going on and people everyone was doing so many different things. It was just easier in a way for me to be the host. Right.

[00:02:41]>> Run-DMC was critical to get on the show.

[00:02:44]Um and and I had a relationship with Russell Simmons and Def Jam. I'd been working for them. I'd made music videos for them.

[00:02:52]Um uh I'd been you know, in relate in in relationships with with Def Jam. I made Christmas in Hollis I produced and directed the Christmas in Hollis video for Run-DMC.

[00:03:03]I directed the uh Adidas commercial that they did. So, so I had a relationship with with with uh Def Jam.

[00:03:11]So, that was easy for me to approach Russell Simmons to get Run-DMC on.

[00:03:16]Shannon was not hip hop, but you know, the people that I worked with and producers, they were really pushing me to to not have it all exclusively hip hop to kind of like spread out a little bit.

[00:03:30]Uh the New York City Breakers was the crew that I created. So, that was easy to put them on the show.

[00:03:36]Uh so, that's kind of how I put together the talent and the audience. I really wanted it to be a studio uh show like a Soul Train, you know, unlike Some people criticized the show and said, "Oh man, you should have made it you should have graffiti Graffiti Rock should have been on the streets of the Bronx, you know, or you should have gone into different places and you know, maybe I should have. I don't know.

[00:03:59]But um >> [clears throat] >> I really wanted my intent back then was to elevate the culture to be take it out of the streets of the Bronx and put it in a inexpensive uh uh high-quality uh TV studio. I wanted to elevate the culture and put it where I felt it belonged and where it was headed. And what I was going to say and what I was going to say to and note to note to that was that I what I enjoyed about it was seeing seeing it in the context of that studio. Seeing it in that space being performed and seeing like Grandmaster Flash I'm not I'm sorry not Grandmaster Flash Kool Moe Dee and Run-DMC battling in that space and seeing like the dancers moving around. It just was >> Yeah.

[00:04:47]It just was such a for lack of a better term kind of a mindfuck. Like it was like the first time that you're getting [snorts] to see these things outside of just like a smoky nightclub or >> [laughter] >> Oh, and then of course I had Brim I had Brim the graffiti artist Brim who I'd worked with. These are all people I'd been working with for years uh as a hip-hop entrepreneur and filmmaker.