Disco Daddy the First Rapper in the West.

Disco Daddy Interview: The Pioneer of West Coast Hip Hop

By Myrrhlin

Now some of you might remember West Coast rappers such as Dr Dre, Eazy E, and Ice Cube. However there is someone I would like to introduce to you, if you haven't already had the pleasure of getting to know him. His real name is Michael Khalfani and he wants to take you on an adventure that you will never forget. First West Coast Emcee, First West Coast Hip Hop DJ, and creator of the famous LA Breakers! We are about to go back .....WAY BACK....40 years in time....can you diggit? I want you to close your eyes and think about what Los Angeles was like at the time....1970... if you weren't there.....ready? Ok ....HERE WE GO.....

Myrrhlin- What's the 1st time you experienced Hip Hop? Who was doing it and Where?

Disco Daddy- Now experience Hip Hop again this is the thing...i started in this game before the label was attached to it. It hadn't spread out here on the words “Hip Hop” they were using it in '75 by Grandmaster Flash and Cowboy....Out here....its hard to define when Hip Hop started on the West Coast so I always look at it as....when I made my record...the first West Coast Hip Hop Rap record. That was my first time, I was a rhyming DJ from 76-79. There was no scratching then, so a DJ was basically the man that controlled the party. I grew up with DJ's that did in my mind that what A DJ did....as a night club DJ you had to make your name by having a perfect tight ass mix and throw in your own personality, like writing rhymes. LIttle short rhymes in between songs. I grew up listening to Frankie Crocker in the 60s on WWRL. So that's what I was into 1976 during the Showcase nightclub on Adams and Crenshaw. When I auditioned I made up little rhymes, Jean Hardy liked how I threw in rhymes in between and he said "You know what I'm gonna give you the job, what are you gonna call yourself?" At the time my lady was pregnant with our first child, my daughter, so I had to come up with a name... well this is my first job in the disco and this is my first baby so I'm gonna call myself Disco Daddy! And I thought up the name right there. So as far as rappin and rhymin in 1979 when Rappers Delight record came out I first heard it and said "I CAN DO THAT!!" So I quit my job as a disco DJ. I was already known in LA number one DJ at the Showcase and the Workshop Disco, there were only 2 clubs that were teenage clubs in LA and I was a DJ at both of them. Ok... LA was much different than New York. Out here, You couldn't do park jams unless you had a permit. We didnt' develop the same way.

Myrrhlin-How did news travel so quickly from East to West coast without the internet and social media?

DD- We had record pools. Michael Mixxing Moore, Andre from the Carolina West and myself. At the record pools when we would pick up new records they would tell us about new records. like this is Schooly D he's a rapper from Chicago because rap wasn't big out here until rappers delight (79) I did a rap record that wasn't playing.... this is nice, but you know what is this? I had heard of rap and knew that it existed because my brothers and sisters were living in New York at the time, but there was no rap presence on the west at the time like there is now. Trying to take you back to a time when all radio was R & B we got new radios singles that were 12 inch dance singles that nobody had ever really heard played before every now and then there would be a rap record like Schooly D but it never caught on until Rappers Delight. Everybody then said it was a fad that it wasn't gonna last like disco duck era. The feeling in 79 was that it was gonna fade out, yes there were people trying, but at that time there wasn't anyone who really wanted to seriously go into the studio and record rap records. They were looking at rap from the outside looking in saying, “Is this gonna be here next year?” “Should I invest money into this a record like this?”....”or even put a group together?” And putting groups together back then to do that type of music was not heard of because naturally there were no people doing it. It took a while for the record to filter into the consciousness of young people then they start writing their own raps, that was a period of transition from lovin R & B to getting into rap. You couldn't walk through the streets or clubs and find a couple of rappers like you could today. It took a year or two for that to happen, but I was the first to start going to nightclubs because I was in the Southern California Disc Jockey Association when I quit my job I called Doctor D at the Speakeasy. D I'm trying to rap.... called Andre at Carolina West told him and Ricky Rick at the Hobart club....I was able to go to nightclubs now because I quit my job as a Dicsco DJ... that I was never able to go to before you see because I would be working on the weekends.... I knew all the Djs.... I now had a head start to be able to rap in the clubs over everyone else.

I was now able to go to clubs and RAP...and get my shit tight and see what worked and what didn't work....see ...I had to invent alot of stuff myself. Up until Kurtis Blow saying "put your hands in the air" there were no standard lines that everybody used at the time...so when I talk to people about this I have to take them back in time ....there wasn't solo rappers much at that time. Up until then there was Boots and him. If you were gonna make a rap record you usually at that time get a group with a DJ.... they didn't have your Grandmaster Caz or single rappers on stage like in New York...so when I went to the clubs out here thats because I went to all the night clubs with only black Djs.

Myrrhlin- What opportunity presented itself for you to participate in Hip Hop?

Disco Daddy- I was the first rapper anybody actually ever saw..... it was so popular and I only did 2-3 minute sets and the club owner would pay me 50$ and tell me to come back i was the only rapping at that time. I would go to 3-4 clubs on Friday and Saturday night do 2-3 minute sets.... and TURN THE PLACE OUT!! From 79-81 that was the growth period for Disco Daddy. When people saw me preform they were standing around asking themselves...”are we supposed to dance or are we supposed to watch this?” Hahaha...Being a Disc Jokey I had a year or so ahead in 1980. See the contest in '81 was the final step it was the first time that a night club gave a rap contest in conjunction with a radio station KPFJ, since the music hadn't disappered, Rap was growing on the East Coast and they want to see if anyone would come out for two unknown cats. That was the first time that people got to see a rap battle on the west coast. I rapped for two straight years from '79 to '81 before I entered the 1st contest at the Carolina West against Ice T and Duffy Hooks was there in the audience. After the 2nd week when I beat him, Duffy Hooks offered me the recording contract.

M- What was your motivation at the time ?

DD-This is the thing I left new york before jumped off...I got out of the airforce in 70-71 and I moved to LA because I was an actor. I am a trained theatre actor. All the trained black stage actors all these guys that made these blaxploitation movies were from New York. Hollywood is still Hollywood they wanted the best actors no matter where you come from. All those people moved out here because there was work. I got out of the airforce... this where I wanted to come to I was thinking I was gonna be the next Richard Raltree, make me a Shaft movie or two...heheh. From 74-79 first blaxplotation movies, all those lead actors were New York stage actors who transfered into film. Do some research James Earl Jones, Glynn Thurman.... I fell into being a DJ....then after an Emcee... I never foresaw any of this....

M-What resources did you have, Money? Equpiment?

DD- None. The record pools were the only source of 12" records for music to rap over. Rock skate roll bounce 12"... the Sheik... Good Times....that was what everybody at that time thought was the shit.... till 1980 there were others that started to rap, but I beat em all in battles because I was a DJ.... I knew how to rock the crowd and as an entertainer I already knew what they wanted to hear.

M-When did you see all 4 Elements of Hip Hop come together on the West Coast for the 1st time?

DD- 1983 was when I was when I got hip to the Club Radiotron. It openned in 1980. Before that graffiti was last to join the other elements indoors and before that was breakin'. Complete reverse of New York. These elements grew together...there was only one place to go...to exhibit their art where they had the freedom to paint. They would create these big boards....week by week you could come in and there would be a different entire background that someone had painted up the next week. They would come in without having to fear the police would exercise their art. A night club that accepted them. They would make jackets and clothing pieces for some of the rappers. That's how it started to get personal... you get you a Levi jean jacket....there using the same thing to tag the walls... spray paint on the back of the jackets. They realized they could do this on clothing. They would take loose jeans and paint them all up as well.. that's where you first had graffiti blending into the lifestyle and it became Hip Hop that way the more colorful the better......The dancing was colorful, the clothing became colorful.

M- When did you find out you were the first successful recording artist on the West Coast for Hip Hop?

DD- My daughter introduced me to Myspace back in the mid 2000s.... after she had seen that people were trying to take credit for the LA Breakers. So I stated checkin it out and everything. Micahel Mixxin' Moore died in mid 2000s... I think 2006. He told Danny, “If you ever wanna know about the beginnings of West Coast Hip Hop then You gotta find Disco Daddy.” He had never heard of DIsco Daddy....Danny went to KJLH radio to tell them that there was going to be a funeral for Michael Mixxin' Moore. I happened to turn on the radio and here there was going to be a service for him. I immediately picked up the phone and called the radio station and got through saying I would like to attend the funeral...”Who are you?”... My name is Micahel Khalfani as known as Disco Daddy!!... Yeah it was really a trip, and so I met Danny... he showed me how to use the internet and Myspace to start promoting the record. He got in touch with Captain Rapp, who I hadn't seen in 15 years, DJ flash, all these people from my past whom I was associated with. I started a campaign later when Facebook started, never knew that it would help me, but it brought me back from obscurity. Only reason I'm talking to you right now is because of the internet; something that has helped me get my name out there so people can see what I look like, what I did, and for the interest and the rebirth of Hip Hop. In 1999 Billboard music had an article called the History of Hip Hop and the first time I saw my name and they said it was the first West Coast rap record!

M-Were there any Females rappin during this time?

DD- First female I saw in LA around 1980 ...which I can't find her now...her name was Rockin Roz. At different clubs and places that I would go to that they had rappin... Roz would pop up... she was the only female I ever saw. And after '83 I saw her, she had a baby... she had been signed to a label.. Johnzo records...Johnzo had a studio on Crenshaw boulevard. Never heard anymore from her.

M-What was the ethnicity spread like during the Showcase era to club Radiotron?

DD- Because of the area Radiotron was located at in a heavily Black and Latino community these were the seeds of Hip Hop. When breakin' started to become more popular it didn't matter what color you were. It wasnt about...what you white boys doin here anymore....it turn into..”What you got?” if you have a level of skill it didn't matter... That was the power of Hip Hop! Nothing else like that would make these kids get together like this except this artform. So, I understood how in New York they could build a Zulu Nation and how it could expand worldwide because of the brotherhood it created of these kids getting in a circle and watch each other, then one of them poppin up to do to do better than the next cat. It was simply about this artform. That's where culture comes from....where all these little normally insignifigant things that we pick out... where you don't eat the same foods as mine, you are a different color that me you aren't supposed to be here dancing together. They had love for one thing...and that's Hip Hop. It will be multi-cultural as long as there is one thing and that is Hip Hop.

M- Why did you stop rappin and what happened to Disco Daddy?

DD- For a moment... before the internet came along...I'd been lost in history.... you might have heard the name disco daddy you could find the record was on the air.... we never took any publicity pictures back then...Disco Daddy and Captain Rapp nobody ever knew what we looked like. When we actually got a radio station in LA to play our record and it actually happened we were shocked....and Duffy, our producer, he didn't have any money to print up copies of the record...he wasn't prepared. JB Stone the program director he brought us into a meeting... he told Duffy he wanted to take the record national we gonna recut it and we gonna put the record in all the major cities....Duffy and his father came from a period where black people always get screwed over.... you turn over your master to somebody else you will never get paid for it... and he turned the deal down. This was a deal that was setup with the program director of the radio station!

Me and Captain Rapp are looking at each other, because this is our first record.... this is our whole future that you are making a decision that cut us off.... from BLOWIN UP!!!! We fell out with Duffy. We wanted to leave the label we felt like we could do better somewhere else... Motown actually called us.... and in the meantime, we sent the masters to Billy Jefferson who used to own Jazz City Records, he's a slime ball ...from under a rock.... the type that I just happened to meet in the very beginning of my career.... Duffy sold the masters to him instead of Cletus Anderson. Billy asked us to sign with him.... I don't wanna sign to him.... He told me if you don't sign with me, I'm gonna change the name of the group to Captain Crunch and the Funky Bunch....and so I'm in a position I got a record that's being played my masters been sold to somebody...I gotta sign with him.... I sign with him and recorded Zodiac Rhymes...and he ends up changing the name of the record any damn ways.... which prevented us from touring and making money for our pockets. Motown called us after this happened to sign us as the first rap act, they saw the success, but I couldn't sign because the rights were already sold.

In 1985 there was a huge epidemic of crack in the neighborhoods....so I wrote a jam called chasin' the rock...I couldn't go under the name Disco Daddy anymore so I had to change my name, only time I ever changed my name so I went under the name Megabite. I took the song to Celtus anderson and he said "They won't get the anti drug message...kids are gonna be walking around snapping their fingers singing the hook...chasin' the rock." I never thought about it that way...hahaha...back in the day you had to be careful what you were saying in the early day radio was very sensitive to drug related and/or bad language....it wasn't like the gansta rap era later. We recorded it and its out there on YouTube now....

After that I said.... wow I'm through with this.

After '85 my kids was growing up I got into being a parent my babies' moms in late 89-90 started having problems and I went and got all my kids and I became a single parent for the next 6 years raising three teenagers.

M-What are you currntly doing as an elder to support the preservation of Hip Hop Kulture?

DD- I am currently on the advisary board for the Universal Hip Hop Museum in New York that they are creating in the future. I am also about to get started working on a bus tour for Los Angeles tourists to see the sights and attractions of West Coast Hip Hop and its origins. And of course my book, "What Ever Happened to Disco Daddy" is being published soon to preserve the true 100% organic story of the beginnings of West Coast Hip Hop.