Hip-Hop Hero Calls Tampa Home

TAMPA - Mention Charlie Chase to a fan of Top 40 hip hop, and you'll likely draw a blank stare.

Mention Chase to a hip-hop head who knows the music's history, and you'll get an immediate smile of recognition and, probably, a few gushing quotes.

"He's definitely a legend," says Sandman, a Tampa DJ who spins Saturday nights on 95.7 The Beat and runs tampahiphop.com, a Web site that covers the Bay area hip-hop scene.

"He's one of the forefathers of the movement. He's a living part of history," says Idris Faruq, who runs Tampa hip-hop label Substantial Records and is a member of of Tampa hip-hop outfit the Villanz.

And now, the legend calls Tampa home.

As Memphis is to rock 'n' roll, the South Bronx is to hip hop: its birthplace.

Chase, 49, was a teenager growing up in the South Bronx in the '70s, then considered one of the most impoverished and dangerous areas in the United States.

Hip hop was born out of this desolation. DJs and MCs plugged their gear into public power supplies and threw impromptu parties anywhere they could draw a crowd.

"In the Bronx, you either had to be constructive or be destructive," Chase says. "Hip hop was a way for us to be constructive, to get away from all the everyday hassles as a teenager - dealing with gangs, dealing with drugs. It was an outlet for us. It was a beautiful thing."

Chase, Tony Tone, Grandmaster Caz, Hut Maker JDL, Almighty KG and Easy AD formed the Cold Crush Brothers, a group whose legacy far outweighs its commercial success or scant recorded output.

Chase, of Puerto Rican descent, says he took flak from fellow Puerto Ricans and some African-Americans for his involvement in a predominantly black genre.

But Chase's skills were enough to silence most critics.

In conversation, Chase is humble about his contributions to the art of DJing, deferring originator status to turntable greats such as Grandmaster Flash, Grand Wizard Theodore and DJ Kool Herc, all of whom he performed with.

But there's no denying Chase's skills on the wheels of steel. He's a master at finding and blending beats, flowing a current rap hit into a classic rock snippet or cutting in some salsa and old-school beats.

Listening to him create an hour-plus mix live on WMNF, 88.5 FM, is to witness a truly spontaneous art form.

Chase appears the first Saturday of each month on WMNF's "Saturday Night Shutdown." At the moment, it's Chase's one regular gig in Tampa, to which he relocated two years ago.

"I'm not knocking Tampa, but it's not like New York with two bars on every block," Chase says.
Chase moved to Tampa to give his four children a better environment in which to grow up. They range in age from 25 to 5. One son, Jonathan, 19, is following in his father's footsteps, spinning under the name DJ Azeone.

With work in short supply here, Chase tours in the more lucrative markets of Japan and Europe, where Chase is well known thanks to his appearance in the 1983 film "Wild Style."

The low-budget drama exposed the world to a culture then just finding its way past its South Bronx home.

It may not be a cinematic classic - "To be honest, the story wasn't really great," Chase says - but what it lacked in sophistication it more than made up for in reality.

"The thing about that movie a lot of people don't understand is, it's real," Chase says. "Everybody doing something in that movie is real. Even the stick-up kids. That's no lie. The DJs were real DJs.

That's a beautiful thing.

"The movie was made at the right time," Chase says. "It helped to propel hip hop worldwide."

It wasn't enough to save the Cold Crush Brothers from a lousy contract, though.

"We got locked into a record contract with people that didn't know what they were doing," Chase says. "We signed as kids and didn't seek advice."

The Brothers' single "Fresh, Wild, Fly and Bold" sold 18,000 copies, Chase says, until their manager pulled it from release, suspicious of a distribution deal with Profile, then one of the biggest rap labels, with Run-DMC on its roster.

"This knucklehead, he was an insecure guy, and he gets the idea that the company is robbing him," says Chase.

The move killed their chance to have an impact beyond the hip-hop faithful.

A collection of the group's singles, named after the aforementioned single, finally was released in 1996.

"Everybody knows us for our shows," Chase says. "We don't have hit records; we have hit stage shows."

Chase and Caz, along with a new crew, still perform as Cold Crush Brothers, bringing audiences old-school showmanship and a direct link with hip hop's origins.

Chase can't help but be dismayed by contemporary rap's tendency to celebrate drugs, crime and violence - the things he sought escape from in hip hop.

"How many different ways can you say, 'I got money, I got guns'?" Chase asks. "The sad thing is, artists have been programmed to accept that as hip-hop music. They want to be safe in the middle of the road."

Chase hears hope on the more conscious music of Common, Kanye West, The Roots, even Ludacris. "He gets a little raunchy, but he's different," Chase says.

Chase's Tampa crew is determined to introduce him to fans less familiar with hip hop's past.

"He's amazing," Sandman says. "He's been doing it so long, but he's still doing it with so much energy.

A lot of DJs are lazy, just playing music. He's really into mixing, DJing, scratching and cutting."

"We want to educate so people don't lose sight of their history," Faruq says. "Once you leave the roots, there's nothing for you to build on."